Spirit Animal Tales
by PaBurke
Summary: Dean didn't become a Sentinel until after he gets back from hell, and panicked from all the sensory overload and thought he was going crazy from his trip to hell. But Sam has read Everything Ever and suspects what's going on, needs to confirm it and so he kidnapped the world's expert in Sentinels. Jim is not amused.
1. Chapter 1

**Spirit Animal Tales**

By PaBurke

Summary/Challenge: Crossover with The Sentinel in which Dean is a Sentinel and Sam is his Guide. My ideal situation would be that Dean doesn't become one until after he gets back from hell (that pesky rehymenating business), and panics from all the sensory overload because he has no idea what the hell is going on, and thinks he's going crazy from his trip to hell. But Sam has read Everything Ever and suspects what's going on, needs to confirm it and discovers he's Dean's Guide, naturally.

Spoilers: All of Sentinel, Season 4 of Supernatural

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

*sntl*spn*sntl*spn*

The jaguar snarled.

Jim Ellison slowly lifted his head and took careful stock of his surroundings. Something was wrong; his spirit guide did not appear out of the woodwork for no reason. It was standing at the door, swishing its tail. It was agitated but not frantic. The bullpen was normal. People were hard at work. The sentinel stretched his senses; nothing alarming on the floor above or below. He stretched still further and found only the normal cacophony of a police station.

The only thing blatantly missing was the heartbeat of his guide. Jim checked the clock: Blair Sandburg should have been here by now. Jim stood and –trying to keep his actions restrained- knocked on his boss's door. "Simon?"

Simon Banks might not be able to read a sentinel's body language like a guide, but he was an old friend and a police captain on top of that. He knew there was trouble. He also knew trouble's main companion. "Where's Sandburg?"

"That's what I want to know."

Simon shuffled through the papers on his desk. "He didn't leave me a message."

"He was going to stop at the university to troll an old contact." Ever since the dissertation fiasco, Blair had avoided the campus when he could. Only desperation in finding a clue on the sex slave case would have drawn him back. Blair thought that one of the language teachers would translate an Asian message faster than the department translators. He would have to eat crow to whoever to get the help the PD needed. Jim had offered to go and intimidate whoever, but Blair held firm. He wanted to do this on his own. He didn't want a witness to his humiliation, nor a bodyguard.

"Maybe Rhonda has something?" Simon suggested.

The two tromped over to the secretary's desk. "Rhonda?" Simon asked. "Anything come from Sandburg?"

She shook her head. "But there was a fax from Rainier University. I thought it was _for_ Blair and was saving it until he came in." Rhonda knew Jim well enough not to give him time to growl for the fax. She simply handed it over.

Jim looked at the first page. It was a blurry photograph of a man exchanging a tiny oriental girl for cash. The second page was obviously the back of the photo: an address, a time and a plea, 'you need to stop this.'

"Why the hell didn't he call you about this?" Simon asked.

"His phone had an unfortunate incident with water," Jim explained. Some really tall guy carrying too many books had crashed into Blair on the sidewalk the day before. Somehow Blair's phone had ended up in a mud puddle. "He thought it was fine, but it's been giving him fits. And he would have had to ask someone to use their phone on campus." Blair wouldn't have put himself through that for a mere phone call when it wasn't an emergency.

Simon looked at the address. "It's not far out of his route from the university to here. He probably thought that he would check out the place first, since it was practically on the way. You think something went wrong?"

Jim looked at his jaguar standing in the doorway. "I'm going to check it out."

"Take H and Rafe with you."

"Captain…"

Simon glared. This was nonnegotiable. In fact, he bellowed and told the two detectives their new orders personally. Jim grabbed his jacket and stalked to the door. The detectives were not far behind. Jim was too impatient for the elevator, so he took the stairs. He was in his truck and revving the engine before he spotted H and Rafe in the parking lot. He knew that Simon had given them the address, so he didn't wait for them. The jaguar in the passenger's seat wasn't willing to wait either.

Jim had arrived and conducted a perimeter search before H and Rafe appeared on the scene. He had already come to two conclusions. One, Blair had been here. Two, he was no longer here. Jim knew that Blair had met someone and that someone was no longer here either. So where was Blair?

H and Rafe finally arrived. As soon as they were close enough, Jim pulled his weapon. "Watch out for booby-traps. I can't see the street corner that was pictured around here. I don't know why this was chosen as the meeting place."

There were no booby-traps, just the scent of garbage, ozone and the barely there scent of a second person. The second person had been careful where he stepped, but Jim could still see parts of his shoes. The man –a single strand of longish hair had enough of a scent to confirm male- had huge feet. Jim would bet that the rest of the man was huge as well. The stranger had taken great pains not to leave evidence, even to a sentinel eye. Whoever this was, Jim was sure that he knew and believed the dissertation. Jim very carefully walked out of the back of the warehouse to the dock. There were no booby-traps and no evidence of a struggle. Though, knowing Blair, the stranger could have said just about anything off the wall and his guide would have gone along willingly. Somehow, Jim was sure that Blair had been overpowered –gently overpowered- but overpowered all the same.

Jim's jaguar stood just north of the dock. Jim could see the slightest indication of a rope tied to one of the posts. The stranger had come and gone by using a boat. Even with Blair's help, Jim would not have been able to track something so diluted by the scent and sounds of the ocean. There probably wasn't a better way to throw a sentinel off the trail.

The wind changed directions for a second and Jim could smell Blair. He charged off in that southerly direction, halfway aware of H and Rafe on his tail. Jim concentrated with his eyes and breathed deep. If he multitasked, he might not zone.

There.

Jim hurried to the mostly-submerged flannel. He pulled it out of the water. Blair must have dropped it to give him a direction. Thankfully, there was no scent of blood or fear on it. Jim kept walking south, looking for another clue. He heard Rafe ask a vagrant about seeing Blair pass through. The vagrant swore that Blair hadn't, but then Jim could smell the heroin on him from down wind. The vagrant might not remember his own name at the moment.

The jaguar growled. Jim just thought that he was going too slow, that Blair was starting to feel threatened.

Then the jaguar screamed. Jim turned to look. The jaguar took off north, paused, waiting for Jim to follow. When Jim turned his head back to the south, the jaguar screamed again. It snarled. Jim frowned and changed direction. The jaguar relaxed almost instantly and kept on heading north. It stopped often to ensure that Jim (and the rest of the detectives) were following.

It might have been faster to return to the vehicles rather than walk, but the jaguar was too twitchy to deviate from its path.

Finally, Jim watched the jaguar walk toward a door at the end of an alley. A wolf was waiting there. The wolf acknowledged the jaguar for a moment and then went back to… Jim tilted his head. Was the wolf trying to help a spirit animal? And this was no normal spirit animal. The animal shimmered into focus. It was a _dragon_ the size of a dumpster. The dragon stood and unwound, revealing a hurt, bleeding and all too still _griffin_ that had been hidden beneath the dragon's protective wings. The dragon with human, hazel eyes nudged the griffin and looked at the wolf and whined. The wolf stepped forward to inspect and to lick the griffin's beak and injuries.

Jim shook his head. Seriously, Chief? Why not just put your head in the lion's mouth? The griffin woke up, shaky, but still struggling to stand between the wolf and the dragon. Jim had to shake his head at the absurdity of it all: the weak and injured, green-eyed griffin trying to protect a healthy dragon. Somehow Jim just knew that the griffin represented the sentinel and the dragon the guide. Who the hell had a _dragon_ and a _griffin_ as spirit animals? Blair was going to flip when Jim finally told him. It blew Blair's spirit animal theory clean out of the water. Blair had this theory that the place a sentinel's senses emerged affected the animal species of his or her spirit. The jaguar was the baddest ass of the Peruvian jungle so of course Jim's spirit animal would be that. Where would a sentinel have been 'turned on' to have a griffin? Hell? Jim's mind was playing tricks on him; he thought he faintly smelled sulfur or brimstone.

"Jim?" Rafe whispered. "What do you hear?" All of the detectives knew that the dissertation was truth, but ignored any ramifications unless people were in danger. Jim wished that he could accept the sentinel abilities as easily as Rafe and Henry had. They had no problems following Jim even when he wasn't telling them why he was moving in a northerly direction.

Jim turned up the mental dial labeled 'hearing' and instantly heard Blair's voice, soft and calming, and his heartbeat, steady and sure. He was on the second floor with two other men. "He's talking."

"No surprise," Henry huffed.

"He's not in trouble." It was a little lie and both of the detectives knew it. Jim was going to read his partner the riot act for being out of communication for so long. And there was the matter of the false trail that the kidnapper with the dragon spirit guide had left.

"How do you want to play this?" asked Rafe.

"You two stay out here and look for clues. The sex slave ring really is based in this area." He had recognized this very street corner from the photo that had lured Blair into the trap in the first place. "I'm going to go retrieve my partner."

Henry grabbed his arm as he passed. "If we don't hear from Hairboy in fifteen minutes, we're calling the cavalry. Simon gave us strict instructions. He wants to be kept informed."

Jim glanced at where the wolf, dragon and griffin used to be. "No," he contradicted. "Simon does not want to be informed on this one."

Henry didn't budge. "You've got fifteen minutes."

Jim rolled his eyes but jogged into the warehouse and up to the top floor. He heard Blair whispering, "Slow down. They don't have to be enemies. Slow down, Jim. Don't make them jumpy. Slow down and think, Jim." That was a warning if he ever heard one. The dragon knew he was coming. Heck, the griffin probably knew he was coming. So against all of his ingrained macho proclivities, he knocked and hated himself for such a show of weakness.

The door opened and a tall, young man with hazel eyes held a gun on him. He looked a bit confused. "Detective Ellison. I was hoping to have a couple more hours before returning Detective Sandburg." He backed up and let Jim into the room. "How did you find us? I was sure I had created a convincing false trail without leaving clues as to our true whereabouts."

Jim glared. Was the kid a lawyer? With a dragon for a spirit animal? He'd be hell in the courtroom. "You did." Jim closed the door behind him. He didn't want H or Rafe to see them or the gun, and try to charge the room.

"So how did you find us?"

"Jim's just that good," Blair bragged. He looked proud of Jim's abilities and curious as to what had happened. He would ask as soon as they were in private.

"I went quite a bit out to sea before returning to port so that they would be no scent trail. There was no scent trail," the guide pushed.

"There wasn't," Jim admitted. He tossed his cell phone to Blair. "Call Simon or the cavalry will be here."

Blair obeyed and the dragon-guide made no move to stop him. Blair somehow managed to calm down the captain before hanging up. "We have to be back in the office in an hour," he told the other guide, almost apologetically.

The dragon-guide sighed and slumped and looked like a kicked puppy. Jim couldn't believe that he felt sorry for the guide-napper. "Is your sentinel better?" Jim asked him.

The dragon-guide looked at the sleeping man on the cot. "He's resting better, the best since I got him back. But I'm worried about his eating habits. He went from junk food before the contract came due to _nothing_ now. And his clothes are giving him rashes."

"You just have to slowly reintroduce food to his diet. Whole foods, organic foods, stuff with no pesticides," Blair told him. "Change detergents to something hypoallergenic, but he might have to change to non-dyed cottons until his senses settle."

The dragon-guide nodded eagerly, typed Blair's words on his laptop as if they were worth their weight in gold. "Anything else?"

"You've already proven that he'll follow your voice out of both a zone and a spike. You have to practice. A lot. If you give me your e-mail address, I'll keep in touch and give you ideas for training."

"Really?" For a dragon, the guide could look extremely harmless. Jim's mind always went back to _dragon_ and _danger_ though. He couldn't ignore the warnings.

"I promise," Blair was saying. "Especially if you record the experiments you do with Dean. I know that I can't publish, but the more information I can gather, the more I can help Jim and Dean and other sentinels."

"I promise," the dragon-guide breathed. "I'll take as much help as you can give me. Dean's never been fragile, but now he thinks he's going crazy and…"

"He's not fragile," Jim told him truthfully. "His griffin is already stronger." In fact, Jim's senses warned him that the other sentinel was awake, but trying to find his bearings. His vertigo was the only thing keeping him on his back. Jim wanted Blair out of that room before the griffin could control his senses and decide on a course of action.

The guide looked from Dean to Jim and back again. "Griffin."

"Spirit animal, sentinels can see them," Blair guessed and explained. "But a griffin? I've never heard of such a thing. Does Sam have a spirit animal?" Blair asked Jim.

"A dragon."

Blair looked totally confused. Sam looked a bit horrified and shamed. Jim wondered why. "It means that you're his guide," Jim told Sam.

Sam accepted the knowledge with a simple nod, then he changed the subject. "That sex slave operation that you guys are chasing has a major shipment coming in to the next warehouse over in twenty minutes. All the major players will be there." Sam shrugged. "I figured that helping you out on your case was the least we could do."

"Twenty minutes," Jim echoed. "Come on, Chief." This was a very good excuse and the griffin's muscles were tensing, getting ready for a fight. Jim wanted to bypass any fight, if possible. He was out the door and on the phone, calling for backup for the take down. Blair was where he belonged, right on his heels. He knew that Sam and Dean would be long gone before the members of the sex slave gang were all arrested. Jim wanted them gone. He wanted them out of his territory.

Two hours later, they were gone. Sam and Dean had disappeared in the middle of chaos of the mass arrest, leaving no trail for even a sentinel to follow. Jim's jaguar had no interest in giving hints as to their whereabouts this time.

They were gone for good. Hopefully. Jim would ignore any e-mail from griffinndragon on Blair's computer. As long as they stayed far away, Jim could tolerate their existence.

*sntl*spn*sntl*spn*


	2. Chapter 2

**Spirit Animal Tales II**

By PaBurke

Summary: Dean is a Sentinel and it's not all that easy.

Spoilers: All of Sentinel, Season 4 of Supernatural

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

*sntl*spn*sntl*spn*

Dean vaguely remembered cold, rain, _something pinging on his radar_, but still being someone he could trust. A man, sure and strong, treating him as an equal even though Dean couldn't stand without his stomach rebelling and hearing too much and the light too bright and he wanted to scratch off his skin like a skinwalker. _Need to make sure Sammy was safe_. Sam's voice was a shelter in the overload talking with a different trustworthy man. _Sam's heartbeat led the way to safety_. Then Sam pulling Dean's arm over his higher shoulder and directing Dean to _leather-soft, sweat-Dad, blood-his own, salt-the spare bag under the driver's seat, gun oil-how recently had Sam cleaned the guns_ the Impala. The purr of the engine lulled Dean to sleep. He still itched and the headlights of oncoming cars were still too bright even if Dean had his head under his leather jacket on the back seat-_stunk of semen, he really needed to stop bringing girls into his baby._

Sam stopped somewhere and pushed Dean into a shower. The water was too hard and it itched, but the soap soothed his skin. Dean nearly fell asleep standing up, but then Sam yelled at him and threw a brand new towel at his head. No, not brand new, Dean could smell detergent and fabric softener. It was still warm from a dryer. When Dean was dry, Sam handed him clothes.

"They're white," he protested. "And stupid looking."

"They won't irritate your skin," Sam answered back. Then he smiled in such a way that Dean remembered from the prank wars. "Besides, I already took your other clothes out to the Impala. Your choices are white, or bare assed."

Dean glared and Sam –_smelled happy at his snit_- stood firm. "The sooner you put them on, the sooner we can get on the road and to Bobby's."

Dean sighed and relented. He put on the soft cotton pants and shirt. He had seen outfits like these before. Dean's eyes followed the weave of the pants from his waist to his ankle and it was all in focus and distinct. There was a slight mistake in the weave about shin-level of his right leg. "Is Bobby starting a cult?"

"No, jerk. He's giving us a place to keep our heads down until you get a handle on your senses."

"I have a handle on my senses," Dean protested.

"Really?" _Dean could smell skeptical_. "What do you want for lunch?"

Dean's stomach lurched at the thought. "Maybe a couple days won't hurt anything."

"That's what I thought." Sam's heartbeat was a little high and that tiny tick by Sam's eye that normally happened when Sam was lying seemed to be a canyon on his face.

"What aren't you telling me?"

"It can wait. There're a lot of things you need to learn. We can take our time until you learn it all. It's not like you have to hurry to return to work in earn a paycheck."

"We're not going to be a burden on Bobby."

"Of course not. I can always pick up a job in town. And you can help out around the junkyard."

"It's not going to take me that long."

Sam waited.

"Spit it out," Dean growled.

"Blair seemed to thinks that you would do better if you have a consistent territory."

"Settle down?" Dean knew the tone of his voice was as if Sam had suggested that he start wearing pink tutus.

"At least until your senses settle out."

"Who is this Blair-guy and what does he really know?"

Sam huffed. "He's just the only living expert on sentinels. He helped me help you in Cascade." He paused, "do you remember Cascade?"

"Cold, wet, loud?"

"Pretty much." Sam handed over white socks and hemp sandals.

Dean stared down at them. "You've got to be shittin' me."

"They'll be comfortable," Sam wheedled. "No itching. You're boots will be fine once we get all the dye that rubbed off from your socks out of them. It's not like anyone here knows who you are or will ever see you again."

Dean looked around; finally awake enough to do so. They were at a truck stop with showers. True, there weren't many people around since it was in the middle of the day. He reached into the shower to grab the shampoo and soap that he had used.

Behind him, he could hear Sam's soft noise of protest. "I can take care of that. You just get yourself to the car."

It was too late. "Baby-safe?" Dean read the bottle labels out loud. Thankfully, it also meant that there was no fragrance assaulting his nose. So he didn't smell like a chick or a baby for that matter. He just smelled clean. "You had to go out of your way to make me wash with baby safe stuff. Are we starting another prank war?"

"You're not itching now. You were drawing blood with your own nails before." Sam snatched the bottles out of his hands. "Ellison uses it and doesn't whine like a baby about it."

"Who the hell is Ellison?" Dean asked. Ellison sounded like a pansy. He looked at his arms and could see the slightly raised and red skin from where he had scratched. He could see the tiny, individual blood clots. He didn't itch nearly as much but wasn't willing to tell Sam just yet.

Sam collected everything, packed it up with swift, economical movements and started toward the parking lot. "I'll tell you once we're on the road."

Dean followed slowly. He saw a couple of Sam's girly hairs on the floor near the bench. Sam must have run his hands through his hair a lot while Dean was in the shower. He had been worrying. Dean picked up the hairs and put them in the trashcan. No reason to leave evidence lying around. Sam was climbing into the driver's seat when Dean meandered over. He was feeling good enough that he wanted to drive, but Sam merely glared at him.

"No," as if he could read Dean's mind. "We don't know how long your senses will be fine and I'm not going to be killed in a car accident because of your pride."

"Fine, fine," Dean grumbled –_Sam smelled of relief_. He sat in the passenger's seat and only waited until Sam had turned the key in the ignition. "Who the hell is Ellison, how sure are you of this Blair character and what is this nonsense of territory?"

"Ellison is like you," Sam started at the being as he steered the vehicle onto the freeway. "You're called Sentinels. You have all five senses –actually six now that I think about it- heightened beyond normal bounds and you use those senses to protect the tribe. Ellison has used the senses to be named Cop of the Year six times running. And it's not a title for political favorite," Sam cut off Dean before he could open his mouth to say something snide. "Ellison earned it because he and Sandburg routinely solve more and harder cases than anyone else in Cascade. Before he used his senses as an Army Ranger in Peru. He finished a mission after every other member of his team had died. He was solo for eighteen months."

Sam paused to breath and Dean considered the information already delivered. Dean decided that if this Ellison-dude could use these senses to be the best cop out there, then Dean could conquer his body and use the senses to be the best hunter out there. He would rule his body; he would not let his body rule him. "Sixth sense?" he asked just to throw Sam off whatever line of shit he was planning on feeding his brother.

"Ellison could see spirit animals. So you probably can too. You probably can see other things easier too. Ghosts and other prey. Your spirit animal is a griffin, by the way."

Dean couldn't help but grin and straighten a bit at the pronouncement. Griffins were badass. They were top of the supernatural food chain. In some unforgettable moment of memory, Dean saw a griffin come and go freely from hell without being touched by the ugliness.

Huh.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to remember that.

He had opened the door to those memories and now remembered pain overwhelming pain _oh stopstop make it stopSammyplease make it stop._

Sam was shaking him. He wasn't in hell anymore. Dean was a bit embarrassed. Sam had had to pull over the car to get Dean out of his memory.

Sam was looking at him with concerned eyes. At least he didn't ask if Dean was okay. "What did you zone on?" he asked.

"Zone?" Dean croaked.

"When you concentrate on any one sense, you block out everything else and lose perception. You need to identify why you zoned and it'll happen less often. Think of it as training. Only after you have completed this training will we be hunting again."

Dean wanted to protest the declaration, but knew better. Zoning would put him in danger which would, in turn, put Sam into danger. QED, Dean had to comply with at least this part of Sam's training program. He told himself that it was like learning a new gun. He always took it to the range and shot a few rounds to get a feel for it. This would be the same thing only a little more involved.

"Dean?"

"Huh?"

"What did you zone on?"

Dean let a blush color his cheeks as he lied. "I was trying to see my griffin."

Sam grinned and huffed and swallowed the lie, hook, line and sinker. "If he's contrary like you, he'll show himself at the most annoying time possible."

Dean looked out the windshield to avoid his brother and saw something in the sky. He automatically focused and caught his breath. "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Are dragons good or bad news? The mythology on them is 'bout 50-50 good/bad on them, right?"

Sam didn't answer and Dean tore his eyes away from the impossible sight to face his brother. "If I say that I see a green dragon in the sky just kinda travelling, sight seeing, does that mean anything to you?"

"It's my spirit animal," Sam confessed. "Probably. Ellison said it was anyway."

Dean turned back to the sky and watched the animal. "Huh."

"Green?" Sam echoed.

"Yep."

"I need to do some research."

Dean laughed. It just seemed so normal in a really weird way. "If that's what floats your boat."

"You should sleep before we get to Bobby's."

"Dude, I've been sleeping for days."

"No," Sam argued. "You've been zoned or with your senses spiked for days. That is not restful to your body. Just close your eyes and rest. You don't have to sleep."

Dean glared –and swallowed a yawn that was threatening to come out. He might be a little bit tired, but he really didn't want to be reasoned with as if he was two. He didn't want to go down for a nap as if he was two. He didn't want to be whining like a two year old being put down for a nap.

So Dean decided that silence was wise, put on his now constant companion of dark sunglasses and 'looked out the window.' If he saw more of the back of his eyelids than the landscapes, only he knew, right?

He last thought before sleep claimed him was _Sammy smelled happy_.

*sntl*spn*sntl*spn*


	3. Chapter 3

**Spirit Animal Tales III**

By PaBurke

Summary: Dean is a Sentinel and it's not all that easy.

Spoilers: All of Sentinel, Season 4 of Supernatural

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~

Jim was in a blue vision again. He was a black panther –and it was always odd that it was not odd in this form. He padded along the jungle floor, exploring. He had a purpose, but he had no idea what it could be. He could hear a fight ahead. Jim raced through the underbrush, until he reached a point that leaping from tree to tree would be faster. It would also give him the advantage to have the higher 'ground.'

The Blue Jungle ended abruptly and Jim was perched on a sturdy limb, hidden from view. On the other side was a _dark_ red… barren, wild, dangerous land. It was horrible to see. Too horrible to describe. The fight that had caught his attention was apparently between the griffin and some butt-ugly serpents. The griffin was chained, injured and outnumbered. It was trying to reach the safety of the jungle.

While three other serpents tortured the griffin, the fourth tried to dart by the group and into the jungle. The griffin, ignoring its own injuries and tormentors, snapped its jaws around the serpent's tail and dragged it back into the horrible red. Jim looked down and saw the green dragon, sleeping restlessly in the 'safety' of the Blue Jungle. The dragon was too close to the red wild country. It was in reach of the serpents. The griffin would not be able to defend and protect it for long. It was amazing that the serpents hadn't already won.

Jim could not allow this injustice to continue. He leapt from the tree and attacked the nearest serpent. The serpent was horribly strong and the red barrenness was unfamiliar territory, the very ground hurt Jim's paws. The griffin was quick to help Jim, leaving the panther an obvious escape route to the jungle. Jim wasn't going to leave unless the griffin accompanied him. The panther managed to bite and claw two of the serpents to the extent that they retreated. The griffin could handle the others. Jim pulled at the chains holding the griffin down. He freed the creature's wings. The tide of the battle changed in that instant. The serpents, knowing that they would lose, all retreated. They watched intently with sickly yellow, red and white eyes as Jim nudged the griffin to the dragon.

The dragon slept on. It was not a healthy sleep. Something was wrong, but the panther could only smell it, he couldn't see it. The griffin lay beside the dragon and one of the manacles loosened. Jim was quick to chomp it to pieces. Three more manacles chained the griffin to the red land. The demons could pull the griffin back to the horrible red wilderness when Jim wasn't around.

Then the dragon awoke. As soon as the dragon opened its eyes, both the dragon and the griffin were gone. They had left the blue jungle, the red barrenness and the imprisoning chains behind. Jim knew that if… when the griffin returned to this land, that it would be imprisoned again with the three remaining manacles, as if it had never left.

The evil serpents watched Jim with reptilian eyes, plotting, hating, interested. Jim retreated deep into the safety of the blue jungle. This wasn't over, but they had won a major battle.

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~

Sam woke Dean from the nightmare. "Dean?"

"I'm fine," Dean muttered, embarrassed and shaky. He was pale and clammy but there was something different in his voice. Something strong and determined. Sam was extremely relieved to hear it. For the first time, Sam thought that Dean might just recover from Hell.

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~


	4. Chapter 4

**Spirit Animal Tales IV**

By PaBurke

Summary: Dean is a Sentinel and it's not all that easy.

Spoilers: All of Sentinel, Season 4 of Supernatural

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~

Bobby was worried and tried not to show it. At least the boys were returning to his house. Last Bobby had seen Dean, he was fresh from Hell with that crazy PTSD and fugue states and he had wanted Bobby to leave him in the care of a much too secretive Sam.

When Sam had called, asking for a place to lay low for a while and even promising to tell him everything, Bobby had agreed. Sam was not going to sleep tonight until he answered all of Bobby's questions.

And Bobby had a written list three pages long.

He also didn't care how long Sam had been driving. Sam was going to keep his promise. Bobby was waiting on the porch when the sleek black car parked in its designated spot. The boys were there so often that Bobby had a space cleared for them.

Dean climbed out of the Impala under his own power. That was much better than before but he was dressed in the stupidest white cotton clothes Bobby had ever seen. "Didja join a cult," Bobby asked the boy.

Dean flushed the slightest bit and Sam stepped forward to deflect and defend. His face was harder than it had ever been towards Bobby. Odd, that was normally Dean's reaction. "They don't irritate his skin. His other clothes do," Sam said.

In other words, don't harass Dean to the point that he retreats to his normal looking clothes that would cause him pain and discomfort. Bobby had seen the rashes and welts and the blood streaked skin when the idjit couldn't stop scratching. No, Bobby didn't want Dean to return to his old clothes until whatever was going on was taken care of. "Looks comfortable," Bobby muttered. It was about as close to an apology as Dean was going to get right now. And that reminded Bobby of damn John Winchester and his damned stick-neckness.

Bobby caught Dean's arm as he passed. "Sorry. I'm glad your clothes aren't giving you a problem now."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I heard you the first time. No need for a girl moment."

Bobby snorted and ruffled Dean's hair. They always did understand each other so well.

Dean breathed in through his nose and an interesting look passed over his face. "Must be the 'Jack makin' you weepy."

Bobby blinked. He searched through his mind for the last time he had Jack Daniels. "That was at lunch!" And he had dinner cooking on the stove.

"Is that burgers I smell?" Dean asked. He made a bee-line for the door, dropping his bag in the living room.

Sam and Bobby charged after him. It was good to see Dean interested in food but… "Dean, wait," Sam called. "That's a lot of grease to inflict on your stomach."

Bobby was quick to agree. Dean hadn't been able to keep any food down since his return from Hell. Bobby should have known better than to have burgers on the grill. He hadn't thought that meal through. He had simply cooked Dean's favorite.

"Ahhh, Sammy," Dean whined.

"You can have half a piece a meat with a full bun. That should soak up most of the grease, at least slow down your body's reaction to it."

"Fine."

Bobby understood the acquiescence to mean that Dean's stomach was still bothering him. He finally had the opportunity to ask his questions. "What the hell is going on with you?" he directed at Dean.

Dean had shoved his sandwich into his mouth and pointed at Sam. Bobby dug out his list and slapped it in front of Sam. "What the hell is going on?"

"Dean is a Sentinel," Sam answered. He brushed Bobby's list away and focused on the man instead. "All five of his regular senses plus his sixth sense is enhanced far beyond normal capabilities."

"Like smelling my lunch drink," Bobby filled in.

Sam nodded. "Like knowing where you've been all day by following your trail."

Bobby stared at Dean. "Like a blood hound?"

"Not quite," Sam said. "His nose is maybe half as good as a blood hound, but that's still five times better than a regular human's."

"Sixth sense?" Bobby questioned.

"He'll be able to see the ghosts that most can't and that are still setting off an EMF meter. But it'll take a lot of control so that he can use it and not get sidelined by his senses."

"Okay," Bobby accepted that explanation. "So what happens now?"

Sam ducked his head. "We need a place to stay for a while. To practice using his senses and to figure out his triggers."

"How long?" Bobby had seen the hesitancy in Sam's body language. And Dean set down his sandwich. They were worried that he'd throw them off his property before Dean's body was ready. "You boys are welcome here as long as you need."

"Even if it takes years?" Sam asked. "I'll get a job," he promised hurriedly. "We'll pay rent."

"You boys are welcome," Bobby repeated. "Don't be idjits. The room upstairs belongs to you."

"Thank you," Sam breathed.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "No need to get weepy. Anyway. Sentinels? Like that Washington cop?" Sam shuttered his expression, but Bobby knew that he was right. "Anyway. I've read some things about them. Maybe we can find more information."

Sam perked right up. "Blair would love to get his hands on original sources of Sentinel research. Where are they?"

"In the library. Sit down," he ordered. "They ain't going anywhere. They'll still be there when you're done eating."

"Thanks Bobby," Dean said and Bobby understood that he was thankful for the place to stay and the access to the resources and everything else.

"Don't mention it, boys."

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~


	5. Chapter 5

**Spirit Animal Tales V**

By PaBurke

Summary: Dean is a Sentinel and it's not all that easy.

Spoilers: All of Sentinel, Season 4 of Supernatural

Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~

"Chief?" Jim called when he entered the loft. No answer. He extended his hearing and could not hear his guide's heartbeat. He glanced around and saw the note on the coffee table. He could read it from the entrance but walked closer because surely that was wrong: gone to library. Jim grumbled as he took off his shoes, lined the heels up against the wall and hung his coat on the hook. His keys were placed in their basket and his gun was placed in a drawer. He went into the kitchen to start dinner. It was supposed to be Blair's turn, as he hadn't been called into court and into meetings with the DA until dark. Then when Jim had stepped out of the police station into the rain, he had heard some woman being mugged. Seriously, what idiot mugged someone that close to a police station? Jim had chased down the mugger and dragged his ass back to the police station and then had to fill out the paperwork.

He was wet and tired and had been looking forward to a hot meal. Blair had better have a good reason for running off to his favorite spot on campus while Jim had suffered all day. The librarians had never shunned Blair, leaving the Sentinel with the uncomfortable thought that they too believed that the dissertation had been truth. Jim tried not to think about it. Instead he looked into the refrigerator for something that would take too long to make. There was beef broth leftover from some big batch Blair had made last weekend. Good enough. Jim poured it into a pot to heat up and then clean up plenty of vegetables and cut up a lot more meat than Blair would have added. He dumped it all into the pot, adjusted the heat, grabbed a beer and headed for the couch.

He picked up the note again and this time sniffed it. He smelled… Blair, happy, excited, determined. Blair was on some sort of mission, probably sentinel related since he should have called if it was related to the most recent case Simon had assigned to them. Blair shouldn't be in trouble.

Then again, this was Blair.

Jim knew that if Blair was truly in the library than he would have turned off his phone, as to not annoy the librarians. The librarians controlled too much information for Blair to causally annoy them. And there was aforementioned reason. There was another way Jim could check on his guide, but he hated doing it.

And if Blair ever found out how easy this was for Jim he would flip.

Jim closed his eyes, breathed in - breathed out, held his breath for a moment and repeated the procedure. Then he opened his eyes and looked around.

His panther was lying by the doors to the balcony, awake and unconcerned. So Blair was fine. For the first time, Jim felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn't told Blair that he could go looking for his spirit guide at any time. Jim always grumbled when the panther showed up as part of premonition or a warning. Why would he go looking for the damn furball? Jim's first instinct was to investigate whatever himself. He would go looking to a mute animal for help only as a last resort. Blair would cheer that he was 'embracing his spirituality' and then he would e-mail the Guide-Sentinel brothers. It was that other Sentinel that made Jim wince. It would have been nice if someone had explained the pros and cons of spirit guides long ago. And if the other Sentinel figured out something about the senses, Jim would appreciate an e-mail in return. Jim was the first to admit that he didn't know everything about being a Sentinel. There was a huge chance that the other Sentinel would be able to figure out some shortcut that Jim could use. Jim wanted the other Sentinel to e-mail him when that happened.

A steady, familiar thrum echoed in Jim's head. He let himself smile for a moment before hiding it behind stern frown. Blair was talking to himself during his climb up all the flights of stairs. He was still pretty excited and determined. He was muttering about translators and being complacent in his own education. Jim always worried when Blair started talking like that. Jim worried that Blair would want to give up being a cop and start his education over at a different school.

Blair bustled into the loft like a hurricane. He was talking to Jim way too fast. Jim caught an apology for the lateness and an exclamation of dinner being ready. Blair talked about new data and resources as he pulled two bowls out of the cupboard and ladled the soup into both. Jim sat up a bit to accept the soup and spoon that Blair brought out to him.

It wasn't until Blair took a sip of the broth that Jim could get a word in edgewise. "So Chief, you wanna tell me what you're so excited about?"

Blair bounced and sloshed hot soup onto his shirt and pants. He immediately had to set down the bowl and go rinse of his clothes. He talked to Jim the whole time. Jim caught a couple more words then before. Mostly names: Sam, Dean and someone named Bobby.

Blair bounced back into the living room, still flying high.

Jim held out a hand on Blair's soup to forestall him. "Darwin, slow down. Before you spill dinner over you again. What's got you in a dander?"

"Sam e-mailed me. They've done practice and he recorded it and they told a friend of theirs that they trust. They didn't give him our names, but they didn't need to because of the dissertation. Turns out their friend, Bobby, had done a tiny bit of research about Sentinels 'cause he can read Japanese and in Sentinels are mentioned in their culture too."

"Darwin, breathe," Jim ordered.

Blair glared a bit, but obeyed the command. And he was off again. "So Sam and Bobby found some books about Sentinels in several oriental cultures but all of the references are in those languages because they are primary sources. They e-mailed me a list, but I need to find someone I trust to translate everything, or I have to trust Bobby's translation because I really don't want anyone at the university connecting you, me and Sentinels together and believe you me, they will if I start asking for translators under the table. 'Course I have to get a hold of those books, but can you imagine?"

Jim nodded once since Blair looked so enthusiastic and was waiting for his reaction. "Sounds interesting."

Blair waited a beat and burst out, "Interesting! Interesting? Is that all you can say about research that can make your life better, that might have more information about how to live and more information on how I might be a shaman?"

Jim moved his hand, so that he lifted up the bowl and handed it to his guide. "It's dinner time," he told Blair. "Obviously, you can't get any further on your research tonight. You should eat and then try to tackle the problem more later."

Blair mutinously glared at Jim and the soup. "I should be online trying to buy the books and having them shipped here."

"Eat first," Jim told him. "You don't want to spill soup on your computer, as well. And it's not as if someone is going to buy up the books you need in the twenty minutes it'll take you to eat dinner."

Blair didn't look convinced. Jim was sure to pay for his disinterest later, even if (or especially because) he was yanking Blair's chain now.

Jim used his spoon to point at the soup. "Eat. The research can wait."

*sntl*spn*


	6. Sentinel E-Mails, short and sweet?

**Spirit Animal E-Mails**

By PaBurke

Summary: Dean is a Sentinel and it's not all that easy. Dean and Jim commiserate via e-mail in their own special way.

*s*

*s*

**From:** panthernwolf  
**To:** griffinndragon

**Subject:** pets

Friendly warning. Pay attention to your _pet._ It'll tell you in which direction your guide is and whether or not to be concerned.

**From:** griffinndragon

**To:** panthernwolf  
**Subject:** pets

Thx. Haven't seen him yet.

**From:** pantherwolf  
**To:** griffinndragon

**Subject:** pets

You will.

**From:** griffinndragon  
**To:** panthernwolf  
**Subject:** pets

FYI. Griffins do NOT fit in shower stalls

**From:** panthernwolf  
**To:** griffinndragon

**Subject:** pets

LOL. Panthers hate showers.

**From:** griffinndragon

**To:** panthernwolf  
**Subject:** pets

Griffins apparently like water.

**From:** pantherwolf  
**To:** griffinndragon

**Subject:** pets

Wolves do too.

**From:** griffinndragon

**To:** panthernwolf  
**Subject:** pets

Dragons stay outside in all weather.

**From:** panthernwolf  
**To:** griffinndragon

**Subject:** pets

Huh.

**From:** griffinndragon

**To:** panthernwolf  
**Subject:** pets

I take it back. A dragon will come in and take over the library.

**From:** panthernwolf  
**To:** griffinndragon

**Subject:** pets

Not surprised.

**From:** griffinndragon

**To:** panthernwolf  
**Subject:** pets

The animals come in handy for more than guide location/protection.


	7. Chapter 7

For bard2003

Summary/Prompt: the boys can't hunt ghosts anymore; the dragon & griffin take care of them before boys can. ;)

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~

It was the first hunt since Dean had been… diagnosed as a Sentinel. Bobby would deny pacing by the door until his dying day. He made sure to walk to other parts of the house to spread his scent around. He didn't want Dean picking up his worry. It was just a simple ghost, he told himself. Just a salt-n-burn. Sam probably could have done it solo, but Dean was keeping a closer eye on his brother than ever before. According to Sandburg's research, it was a sentinel-guide thing. Bobby was pretty sure it was a Winchester thing and Dean was using the sentinel as an excuse. Dean had also reminded them all that Sam had a real job in town and he had to finish the supernatural case before Monday. Sam had applied and had been hired on as an assistant editor for the Sioux Falls Sentinel, a very small local newspaper. Assistant editor was a bit of a misnomer, since Sam was charged with everything from investigative reporting to taking out the trash at the office. The name of the newspaper caused merriment in the household because Sam was always, in one way or another, working on 'sentinel stuff.'

Since he was up-n-about anyway, Bobby did a load of laundry. It was mostly his clothes, but he still used the baby-safe detergent. Dean had been standing closer to Bobby and Sam recently and initiating contact in the form of messing up Sam's hair and clapping Bobby on the back. Sandburg had warned that a sentinel needed safe contact to counteract all the strange stimuli and Bobby was not about to let Dean's 'safe' contact cause a skin rash.

Yeah, the 'safe contact' was on the list of things that they really hadn't explained to Dean and he didn't ask. The boy ignored the e-mails from Sandburg and kept in contact with Ellison. What the other sentinel had written was anyone's guess. Dean wasn't sharing but it seemed to help with the sentinel-thing as much as Sandburg's writings filtered through Sam.

Sam encouraged Dean to accept his new situation, because denying it led to boatloads of pain. Dean hated changing his habits, from eating to showering but change they did. The part that Bobby hadn't expected was cleanliness. Formerly, Dean was only as clean as his last motel. Oh, Dean was conscious of personal hygiene because that was part of landing babes, but he constantly had a layer of dust or dirt on his clothes and his black boots were nowhere near black as they were caked with mud. The Impala had been the lone exception to the earth Dean carted from one end of the country to the other. Now, Dean scrubbed the kitchen weekly and the bathroom every other day. It wasn't something that he complained about, just took care of. When it became apparent that this was going to be a habit, Sam and Bobby made sure that there were cleaning solutions (brands suggested by Sandburg) in the house.

Bobby heard the purr of the Impala in his driveway and went to the door to greet the boys. They were home much earlier than expected. He watched the brothers exit the Impala as clean as they had entered it and it worried Bobby. No matter how clean Dean had been lately, even he should be a bit dusty after a tussle with a ghost.

"What happened to the hunt?" he asked. "There was a ghost, right?"

"There was a ghost," Dean grumbled.

"But?" Bobby turned to Sam since Dean wasn't going to offer any information.

Sam grinned, all little boy mischievous. "Turns out, there's a way to get rid of ghosts without digging up the bones and burning them."

"Oh?"

"If a spirit animal… or two gets a hold of the ghost, it's toast. We never even found out who the ghost was, let alone found their grave."

Bobby was a bit stunned but highly amused. "Well then, get your asses in here. It's almost time for lunch."

The meal was a quiet affair. Dean's stomach must have been bothering him, since he popped a potato into the microwave and dug out the locally cured bacon to cook. He also grabbed the glass storage container of an avocado diced. Dean insisted he was fine, but Bobby and Sam knew otherwise. In the month since the Winchester brothers had come to live at the junkyard, Sam and Bobby had perfected their tag-team act to get results.

A fully loaded baked potato would be a good lunch and the smell of it wouldn't bother Dean. So Sam scrubbed two more potatoes to throw into the microwave and Bobby got out the sour cream, butter, (sea)salt and pepper. Processed dairy would bother Dean's stomach but not his nose. It'd be safe for the others to enjoy it.

The three men sat around the table and ate. Once Dean had piled bacon and avocado onto his potato, Bobby snatched the glass container a half-second before Sam could. Ellison had suggested the fruit as a sour cream replacement but those without dietary restrictions had learned that the unusual food combination tasted surprisingly good.

"How did the information exchange go?" Bobby asked Sam. The brothers had met up with the other Sentinel before driving to the hunt.

Sam huffed and brushed his hair out of his eyes. Dean threw a grin over his shoulder. "Ellison isn't too bad," the older brother said.

"The two of them _bonded_," Sam complained. "On how to keep little brothers out of trouble."

"And by how much trouble little brothers can find," Dean added.

"I didn't think Ellison and Sandburg were blood."

Dean (and Sam) looked at Bobby as if he had suddenly lost fifty IQ points. "Since when does blood have anything to do with family?" Dean asked.

If Bobby didn't stop this conversation now, he'd start getting misty eyed. "So Sandburg took the books."

"He only said thank-you fifty-million times," Dean teased.

"Promised he'd treat them as his own," Sam answered. "He traded for the Rainier demonology book you wanted. He said that he'd put off the librarians for a couple of months but it has to be returned." Sam pulled the brown paper bundle out of his bag and Bobby eagerly accepted it. Rainier had a decent supernatural collection but they wouldn't loan out to non-students, especially out of state non-students. He wasn't sure (and wasn't asking) how Sandburg had circumvented that little caveat. Bobby would read this immediately, copy the pertinent information and have it packaged and ready to go the next time there was a hunt in Washington.

"How the hell are you going to tell Ellison about the spirit animals and ghosts?" Bobby asked.

Dean shook his head. "No idea."

"I think we're keeping this information to ourselves," Sam added.

~sntl~spn~sntl~spn~


	8. Chapter 8

Settling into the Territory

Sentinel Dean

*spn*sntl*

Running had been suggested by Ellison. He used words like "walking a beat" and getting a feel for the "pulse of the neighborhood." From Sandberg's e-mail to Sammy that he had read from across the room, the Doc called it "The Guardian patrolling his territory." As grandiose as Sandberg's description was, Dean could tolerate it because he reassured Sammy enough to let him run alone. Dean would run for hours and the mother hens back at the junk yard would let him as long as he texted every 40-45 minutes. (Yet another compromise. Dean had wanted none or at least every hour and Sam had been demanding every thirty minutes.)

Dean ran and ran and if he was lucky he'd exhaust himself enough to sleep for four or five hours before nightmares of Hell woke him.

Then Ellison's spirit animal showed up in his dreams and… well, it was easier to sleep knowing that someone else had the watch. Dean hated being beholding to anyone, especially when he had no idea how to pay the man back. Even with Ellison's help, sleep was still easier when he ran.

Dean wasn't idiot enough to run the exact same path every day so it took longer for scents to be matched with faces and heartbeats and finally, names. The boys –the brothers- were the first. They were always out playing on the trails. They were preteens with too much energy and not enough oversight. Still they didn't catch nearly as much trouble as Dean had at that age. First, their scent was all over a fallen tree in the middle of the path. Dean jumped it with no problem and continued on.

Then he thought better of it, turned around and ran back to the tree. Other people might not have the same quick reflexes, and might trip on it. So Dean dragged it off the beaten path. The next time Dean scented the boys, they had been playing in a creek. They had actually significantly dug it deeper in the middle. Dean spaced his feet to get the least bit of water in his shoes and kept on running. Idly, Dean wondered if they were trying to change the environment to get crawdads or something.

The third incident clued Dean in: the boys had filled empty plastic pop bottles with dirt and rocks and completely covered an extended low spot in the trail.

They were trying to prank Ihim/I.

Dean didn't trip on any of the bottles. Those were easy enough to dodge, using his eyesight to spot spaces to run through safely. He did nearly fall to the ground laughing so hard at the attempt. He could hear the boys nearby. Though within hearing distance was up to a mile for Dean these days. Dean pinpointed the boys' location and shook a bottle at the pair of them. The boys responded with groans of disappointment. They had been hoping for a candid camera moment. Dean dropped the bottle on top of the rest of them. He was not going to clean up this shit, it was the boys' duty.

Dean ran home with a grin on his face.

*spn*sntl*

Sam and Dean ran into the boys and the boys' mother at the farmers' market. Sam was bartering with a vendor and Dean was scoping out the goods. There was always too much green food here. He made faces at the Swiss chard just at the same time as a pair of rather familiar boys. The boys recognized Dean and vice versa.

"Good kids you're raisin'," he told their mother. She had just bought some Swiss chard. Dean was so happy that Sam wouldn't dare.

Their mother's jaw dropped. "Are you talking about my boys?"

Dean pointed at the young men in question. He could identify the family unit by scent. "Them."

"Yes," she said slowly. "What did they do that you're calling them good?"

"What do people normally call them?"

"Terrors."

Dean grinned. "Yeah, they're both. They've been pranking me on the running trails and keeping me on my toes."

"They've been doing _what?!_"

"Don't worry they cleaned up their messes." Dean was pretty sure it was just to reuse the pop bottles in another prank but it was the end result that mattered.

"They did?" she sounded stunned. They probably never cleaned up at home.

"Sure did. Well, I moved the fallen tree off the trail, but that was before I realized it was intentional."

She turned on her sons and Dean could _smell_ her fury. "Trevor and Terrance, apologize now."

"Ah, mom…"

"Apologize. You could have hurt him badly."

"We're sorry we tried to trip you up."

"You tried to trip a runner!" She was furious.

"It wasn't that bad," Dean tried to calm her down, but she had already grabbed both of her sons and was heading for the exit.

"You are grounded. No TV, no video games…" As she left the market and started her car, Dean could hear her list all of the activities that the boys were forbidden.

"That went well," Sam said as he returned with arms full of organic produce.

"I liked them out there," Dean confessed. "It was fun."

"And excellent training for you. I could prank you out there if you want," Sam offered generously.

"You, I'd prank right back, training or no," Dean promised.

*spn*sntl*

Dean heard the engine first. Nothing unusual, lots of odd engines drove up Bobby's driveway. It didn't sound incredibly well maintained as one would expect from a mechanic but it didn't sound about to fall apart either.

Dean could hear Bobby putting down his tools in the barn and walking out to greet the visitor. Then he smelled…

"Pie. Apple pie."

Dean raced down the steps from his bedroom and hurried to the front door. Sure enough the Terrors' mother was standing in Bobby's driveway with a fresh baked apple pie.

"Pie!" Dean crowed. "Let me help you with that," he said as took it out of her hands.

"Be careful, it's hot."

It was rather warm but Dean had no problem turning down the 'touch' dial to something comfortable. That touch dial had been giving Dean problems all week but not right now! "Got it. You can come in. Smells great." It did. It smelled like she only used ingredients from the farmers' market. He wouldn't have any problems with this.

"What's this for?" Bobby asked.

And yeah, Dean knew enough about faries not to be accepting gifts but it smelled so good and it was PIE. Pie he could eat.

"It's a bribe," she said bluntly.

"Sure, I'll change the oil in your car," Dean offered. "Sounds like it's a month overdue."

She looked at him surprised. "It is. How did you know that?" She waved the question away. "Actually it's a bribe for something else."

"Okay?" Dean waited.

"You said that you didn't mind Terry and Trevor pranking you."

"Not at all."

"And you wouldn't mind them continuing?"

"I've missed them this last week," he confessed.

"I've kept them home and they've been driving me _crazy_."

"Sure, send them my way."

"But other people use those trails too," she worried.

"No one but me uses the Green Mountain trail on Tuesdays and the Beech Trail on Thursdays. Tell them to prank those on those days and they have to clean up by that night." Now that the deal had been decided, Dean dug into the pie. It was just as delicious as it smelled. "So good," he mumbled with his full mouth. Bobby gave him a dirty look.

The mother ignored his bad manners and wrung her hands. "Are you sure?"

"Yep. It'll keep them out of trouble while they're scheming and it keeps me on my toes. What is your name? I keep thinking, the Terrors' Mother in my head." Dean consumed more pie. It was awesome.

She smiled, finally relaxed. "Gwen. Please call me Gwen."

"I'm Dean. And for a pie this good, your boys can prank me all they want."

"Thank you, Dean. I had no idea what they had been up to the last two weeks. At home, they had actually been behaving."

"Sure, let them use up all their creativity on me."

Gwen sighed. "That'll help. Thank you."

Dean popped the last huge bite in his mouth. "Comeon," he mumbled. "While you're here, might as well get the oil changed in your car."

"You don't have to."

"We insist," Bobby added. "I'm sure I have the right oil filter for your car in the barn. Dean'll be done in fifteen minutes."

"I'll bring another pie?"

"Deal," Dean agreed. He trudged out to the car with Gwen and left Bobby inside to eat his own slice of apple pie.

Dean could get used to staying in one place if the pie was always this good.

*spn*sntl*


	9. Chapter 9

*spn*sntl*

After the Winchester brothers dropped off the Sentinel books for Blair, Jim felt a little guilty. The boys managed to get the perfect gift for the ex-teacher. Blair was riding high from the new information. He absolutely loved learning and learning about Sentinels was icing on his favorite cake. He had been thrilled to find a Japanese college exchange student who was willing to translate the books into English (and keep his mouth shut about the transaction) for cash. Hopefully the girl didn't know about the dissertation fiasco since she had been across the ocean and in high school three years ago.

Blair had checked out the demonology book that Singer had asked for, but that seemed like a gift of much lesser value. Jim didn't want to be beholding to the other Sentinel. He knew of a way to repay the pair, a gift that no one else could offer.

As much as he absolutely hated the blue dreams, he hated knowing that someone was suffering torture more. He could probably get the griffin out of the rest of the chains in that other plane of existence, probably some symbol of the trauma that had activated the other Sentinel. He'd have to plan it carefully and that took time, weeks. He didn't want Blair around; no reason to be forced to explain the unexplainable. He'd need Dean to be asleep, and for someone with PTSD, that had to be scheduled.

So the next time Blair had scheduled dinner with Akeno (they'd go over the translation and Blair would tease out all the little nuances that the student didn't know to address the first time) Jim had sent the other Sentinel an e-mail asking him to be asleep early on Sunday night. It had taken Dean two days to reply with a simple 'Roger' and 'Thanks.' There were some things men could do themselves and freeing oneself from chains in alternate planes of existence apparently wasn't one of them.

So at the appointed time, Jim stopped cleaning the room, sat in the middle of his house and sank into a trance. The blue world was waiting. Jim was a jaguar running for black-red edge of the jungle. The dragon was sleeping, seemingly out of reach of danger, but wrong. So, so wrong. The griffin was still chained to the red land. The serpents were there too, just out of reach. They were waiting.

The griffin was waiting for Jim this time. He had managed to get a second chain off of his leg, but two manacles remained. Between the two spirit animals, they tore the shackles apart. The griffin, as expected, made a beeline for the sleeping green dragon.

Jim helped the griffin gently roll the dragon on its back. It was then that Jim could see the reason for the wrongness. There was a scaly, thin black line coming up from the ground (from the direction of the red barren land) and it was wormed its way into the dragon's veins. It was poison, it was death. Jim and the griffin wouldn't leave it there.

The second that the griffin wrapped its beak around the line to pull it out, the serpents from the red desert attacked. Jim leapt to the griffin's defense. It was brutal battle unlike any Jim had ever fought. Both Jim and the griffin knew that they had to win. They would not get a do-over. They could not retreat to fight another day. If they didn't get that black line out of the dragon this time, the serpents would drag the dragon into the red land as soon as the Sentinels awoke. They would lose the dragon for all time.

Jim and Dean wouldn't let that happen. Jim fought and fought. He knew that he was injured, he knew that Dean was injured. It didn't matter. It was a fight to the end.

Then finally, finally, finally, the griffin pulled the last of the thrashing black line out of the dragon's veins, revealing a yellow-eyed snake. The griffin crushed the snake's head in its beak and dropped the corpse. With the long thin black snake dead, the other serpents retreated. They had lost the battle.

Jim and Dean had won.

Jim didn't have the strength to remain in the blue dreams any longer. He faded away. The griffin had the watch now. Dean could take care of his Guide now that he wasn't chained.

Jim awoke to the sun streaming in the window. He was laying down in the living room, a couch pillow under his head. Blair had closed the emergency blackout curtains, but a crack revealed daylight. It was at least ten o'clock _Monday morning_. Shit. He was late. He flipped off the blanket Blair must have tossed on him sometime and instantly regretted it. Pain made itself known from every wound he had absorbed in the red barren land.

He groaned and Blair appeared as if by magic. "Stay down, Big Guy," he murmured Sentinel soft. "I called you in sick. You don't have to go anywhere."

Jim grunted.

Blair offered water. Jim drank the whole glass to cleanse his palette. It was better, but not good enough. He could still taste the serpent's blood and the dirt of the red barren land. It felt like poison.

A phone rang, the ringer piercing Jim's head. He couldn't have hidden the wince if he wanted to. Blair dove for his phone to silence it. He paused when he saw the number on the screen. The phone rang again and Blair answered in a whisper, "Sam?"

"It's Bobby… Singer," Jim heard the other man answer. "The two idjits are a mess now that they woke up. How's yours?"

"He just woke up."

"Yeah, so did the boys. Did he tell you anything?"

"Not yet." And that look on Blair's face promised that he would not relent until he had gotten the whole and total truth out of Jim. He was supremely pissed at what Jim had attempted behind his back. Jim? Jim wanted… a break? A vacation? _Sleep._

"The boys haven't said much, but they wanted me to call you and make sure you knew that Jim had to drink Holy Water, right now."

"Holy. Water."

"I'm serious. He was messing with things he shouldn't have touched. He needs to drink like a gallon of Holy Water."

"A gallon."

"Yeah. You know a priest?"

"Yes," Blair finally agreed. "I know someone that can hook me up."

"Good. The boys are worried about him. Call me back when he's done drinking it."

"Oh. I will," Blair promised darkly. "I want answers. All the answers."

Bobby snorted at him. "Yeah. Good luck." And then he hung up.

Blair was already reaching for his keys. "You stay put," he ordered. "I'm going for the water. You are going to drink every last drop and then you are. Going. To. Talk."

Full stops. Jim was about to catch hell. (Or he had just helped the other Sentinel-Guide pair escape from Hell.) Despite all the pain, and the pain was something even the touch dial couldn't help, Jim was feeling smug. He had just helped win a war.

*spn*sntl*

Jim was on the exact same place on the floor when Blair returned home with a gallon of water. Jim would not have been able to move, but he told himself that he was placating his furious Guide. Jim was given a glass of the Holy Water before Blair even put his keys away. It tasted exactly like the rest of the city water, but something unidentifiable was different. It shouldn't have made a difference and yet…

It cleansed Jim's palette like the bottled water hadn't. By the end of the first glass, Jim knew that he'd survive the pain and by half way through the gallon, he wanted to get up and move.

Blair was against that idea. He did compromise and cook a meal if the Sentinel promised to stay exactly where he was and continue drinking the Holy Water.

It was no surprise that Jim needed the bathroom before he finished the gallon. He felt well enough to make his way on his own. Jim make his way from there to the kitchen table. Blair had a steak, broccoli and a baked potato ready. And yet another glass of water waiting. Blair was worried; normally Jim had to been near death before he'd get a steak without a lot of nagging.

The steak was fantastic and the rest of the food was pretty good too. Jim drank the water and Blair refilled it until they finished the gallon jug Blair had brought home.

"It's not that bad," Jim said once he was sure Blair wouldn't steal his steak away.

Blair _flailed_ as all the emotion and worry he had been holding inside burst out. "Not that bad? Not that bad! _Not that bad?!"_

Jim winced as Blair hit volumes his ears couldn't handle. So he was still a little sensitive and all of the sense dials were set a bit high. They'd level out soon.

"I couldn't wake you up! The _only_ reason I didn't call an ambulance is because you obviously did it to yourself."

"So I miss a morning of work. No big deal. You call it in."

Blair flailed more. "Jim. It's _Tuesday_."

Jim did an epic spit-take when he realized that he missed an entire day. "It's what?"

Blair finally calmed down now that Jim knew how long it had lasted. "You missed two days and you're missing tomorrow too until I'm certain you're fine. And until I get _all the answers_."

Jim grunted.

"Well?" Blair prompted.

"I don't know all of the answers, Chief." At Blair's obvious fuming, he hurried to explain. "I'm not putting you off. I don't know much about Sam and Dean and what I do know is filtered through the blue jungle or… wrong." As he remembered the police reports from Chicago and Milwaukee to be.

"Okay. Just tell me why you went into the blue jungle. You hate it and you obviously planned on that visit, at least."

"The griffin, Dean, had been chained up there."

Blair raised an eyebrow and Jim knew that he had to backtrack. "I fell into a dream a little while ago and found a red, dark barren desert. Dean was chained up in that desert. I had helped him free his wings and one of his legs but then I was kicked out."

"And you returned why?"

"He was suffering. There were serpents attacking him and trying to get to his Guide."

Blair raised an eyebrow and Jim recognized some of the police interrogation methods being used on him. Silence could be very effective but Jim needed to speak.

"But it was more than that. Those books they lent you are priceless and an old book on demonology seemed… frivolous in comparison. I wanted to return the favor."

Blair nodded in agreement about the books. "So you three spent a day and a half battling serpents? Any idea what it represents?"

"Well, considering I had to down a gallon of Holy Water to get the taste of the serpents' blood out of my mouth, that Bobby's book on demonology is equally frivolous as your book on Sentinels."

"Oh," Blair breathed. "Are you sure? I mean, you haven't seen anything like demons ever before."

Jim shrugged. "How would I know? But you know your old theory on the spirit animals?"

"That they're the baddest ass of the physical place where the Sentinel was activated? That old thing? It doesn't explain the griffin and the dragon."

"Except that it does," Jim said. "If you accept demons, they have to come from someplace."

Blair's jaw dropped. "You think Dean and Sam were in Hell?"

"Well, they weren't in Cascade. Dean, at least, was somewhere very different. You got your spirit animal before you ever went to Peru."

"How'd he get in? How'd he get _out_?"

Jim shrugged. "I told you that I don't have the answers."

"Well, we knew ghosts were real. And you're sure that the serpents were real and representing demons. What else is there?"

"I don't want to know."

"I do," Blair said.

*spn*sntl*


	10. Chapter 10

*sntl*spn*

Blair wanted answers, Jim wanted back to work and Dean wanted _no plane rides_. Having been both a Sentinel and a plane passenger, Jim could understand. Dean and Sam were willing to drive the distance, but that was twenty-plus hours one way and Sam had just started his job and didn't have any vacation accrued. He would have to quit his job.

That was the final straw to get Blair to slow down. There was no reason for anyone to quit their job. Jim thought longingly of returning to work to have Simon bellow at him, but Blair wanted him there as a lie-detector and was willing to pay his plane ticket to Sioux Falls. Jim braced himself for the vibrations, smells and lack of leg room.

The trip was worse than imagined.

Dean was waiting at the end of in a beautiful black Chevy Impala, circa 1960s. Jim had seen and admired the car the previous time they had exchanged books, but still, it was a car to be admired many times. The facts of Dean driving and that Sam, his Guide, was somewhere else, were just the first indicators that the younger Sentinel had control of his senses.

"Where's Sam?" was the first question out of Blair's mouth.

"Home," and the anger that saturated Dean's voice was impossible to miss.

"What happened?" Blair asked quietly. His very tone calmed Dean down. Never say that Blair didn't know how to handle an angry Sentinel.

"When I got dragged down to Hell, I asked Sam to do one thing: stop using his demon powers."

Jim and Dean had talked enough in preparation for this trip that the individual words were believed, it just accepting the whole. "Sam has demon powers?" Blair asked.

Dean waved his hand. "He got them when he was six months old, when my mom died when a demon burned down his nursery. They were getting stronger right up to the Special Kid Death Match. Sam was Runner-up and I sold my soul to bring him back. He hasn't used them since I came back because he was too busy taking care of me and he left the demon bitch in the dust when he took me to Cascade… and it's a good thing too."

"Back to why Sam didn't pick us up at the airport?" Jim asked. He knew the information was important but Dean was seething in anger.

"He was deliberately exercising his demon powers when I was 'Down Under.' He was drinking demon blood to get stronger."

"The black snake we pulled out of his veins," Jim realized. "Sam put it there."

Dean gave Jim finger guns as a sarcastic reward. "Bingo. The Demon head in his body, not his fault, he was six months old for that, but how far it burrowed in? Totally his screw up. When my last, my dying request was that he _let it go_."

"Was it with the goal of freeing you?" Blair asked.

"That's _his_ explanation," Dean snapped, "but from what we saw in the Red Land, the demon bitch had a different plan."

"How are your senses?" Blair asked.

"Why?"

That was enough of a confirmation that they were out of control. "During times of emotional stress, the senses tend to fluctuate wildly. Maybe Jim should drive?"

Jim turned to stare at his Guide in astonishment; Dean was already a Sentinel with another Sentinel in is territory, under high amounts of stress and Blair wanted him to surrender the one thing that Dean had been territorial about _before_ being activated, from all accounts?

"I want to get there so that I can get my answers," Blair grumbled.

"The supernatural is real, the monster in the closet is real and Winchesters have been Hunting them since Mom was killed by a demon. Anything else?"

"Were you really activated in Hell?"

The car swerved and Dean pulled it to a stop on the edge of the road. The glare he leveled was impressive. "What makes that an appropriate question?"

"I have this theory…"

"And I have trauma," Dean shot back. "Any discussion of Hell is off the table."

Blair raised his hands in surrender. Jim had been ready to jump between the two, but seriously, Blair knew how touchy Sentinels were about trauma. "Therapy…"

"Name one therapist I can be honest with," Dean cut him off. He had a point.

"How are you going to get better?"

"I run," but the glance he gave Jim hinted to the help in the dreams. Jim just nodded. He had no regrets about that particular battle. He had freed a captive. He would do it again even if it meant that he would suffer the pain when waking up.

"How do you know that you're getting better?" coaxed Blair.

"I'm sleeping now. So ghosts are real and spirit animals can tear them to bits," Dean changed the subject without even trying to segue. "Black dogs smell like graveyard dirt, but you kill them the normal way."

"Normal?" Blair echoed blankly.

"Hack'em. Don't know how anything else related to the Sentinel thing. We've been staying near and Bobby's not one for letting the dangerous hang around."

"So what's real out of all the stories?"

"Some version of everything."

"Vampires?"

Dean huffed. "Do not sparkle; 99% evil but there're always the exceptions."

"Werewolves?"

"Half of them don't know that they are the killer in that dog attack down the street."

Blair balked at the idea of being both innocent and guilty at the same time.

Jim had other questions. "St. Louis and Milwaukee?"

"Freakin' shapeshifters took on our appearance. Huh, but I bet that they would smell the same no matter what." Dean was grinning, anticipating the Hunt. "They actually tried to trick Sam by pretending to be me. And finding them is a bitch since they can change their appearance at a drop of a hat."

"Demons?" Blair asked. "What do they look like?"

"They wear people like meatsuits. Their eye color, when they choose to reveal themselves, is important. No idea how to ID them with the senses yet."

"How do you keep them out?" Jim asked.

"Out of you or out of your territory?" Dean asked for clarification.

"Both."

"You need a tattoo. For territory, there are wards that are effective. Bobby will be the person to ask for that."

"What's the biggest area that's worked?" Jim wondered if he could keep demons out of his entire town.

"Sam Colt managed one between five towns in Wyoming. So miles."

"Sam Colt?" Blair echoed.

"Samuel Colt? You know the gun maker? He was a Hunter," Dean told them. "He did it with the railroad."

"A Hunter of the supernatural?" Jim asked.

"Yep." He pulled into a drive way proclaiming 'Singer's Junkyard.' "We're here."

Jim could hear two sets of heartbeats inside and knew that Dean could as well. He didn't tense up so it was the two rhythms he was expecting. He still smelled angry. Jim didn't understand Sam's position enough to take sides. To him, every instinct had warned him to kill the serpents and the Sentinel expected that it would have been the same outside of the Blue Dream. How did Sam end up seeking help from something that should have been destroyed on sight?

Jim walked into the house after Dean and his mouth started watering at the smell. A stranger was entering the house from the other side with a plate full of steaks fresh off the grill. Sam was chopping vegetables in the kitchen for a tossed salad. All the toppings were cut on separate parts of the chopping block and the block was washed intently between types of vegetables. Sam was doing his best to prevent cross contamination and Jim was thankful.

Dean handed the visitors a plate, fork and knife and pointed to the food. "That's Bobby. He's family. Have at the food. It's all ready."

Blair and Bobby said the standard greetings while the Sentinels dug into the food. Sam wasn't talking, but he was watching his brother with sharp eyes.

"You didn't have to come all the way out here," Bobby was saying. "We would have told you."

"You have a library," Blair answered. "I've always gotten more truth from book than from people."

Bobby wasn't insulted. "There're plenty of lies in my library too, and they've bit us in the ass. Speakin' of…" He reached out to the counter and picked up a small stack of books. "I've found record of Sentinels mixin' it up with the supernatural and I wanted your professional opinion. We know how well Dean scents things but he'll have to learn that on the job. Sight, they say that Hawks can see ghost and other beings outside of the normal human range."

"True," Jim answered.

"Hawks?" Blair queried.

"The books describe Sentinels Hunting as Hawks. I guess there used to be a couple of families that were both Sentinels and Hunters and so the description got around."

"I do have confirmation that Sentinels run in families," Blair admitted. "I want to see those."

"After dinner," Bobby promised. "You're not getting steak juice on my books."

"I can skip dinner."

"No, you can't, Chief." Jim argued. "The books will wait. Eat it while it's hot."

"Fine," Blair grumbled. He turned back to Bobby. "So tell me about these Sentinel/Hunting families."

"They always go after the most dangerous SOBs out there. The family that most recently disappeared, the Campbells, took out several demons through the generations."

"The who?" Dean demanded. And Jim had to dial down his hearing so that the other Sentinel's suddenly furious heartbeat didn't overwhelm all else.

"The Campbells," Bobby repeated. "They vanished from the Hunting community before you boys were born, but a lot of people had high hopes for the girl of the newest generation. She would have been in her late teens, early twenties when both of her folks were killed, most likely by a demon. She was reportedly a strong Sentinel and a kiss-ass Hunter. No one ever saw her after their deaths."

"What was her name?" Dean demanded.

"I'd have to look it up." Bobby peered at Dean, curious and Sam seemed in the dark too. "Why is it so important?"

"Was it Mary, was her name Mary Campbell?"

And now Sam understood. "Mom?" he whispered. "Mom wasn't a Hunter," he denied. "That's impossible."

Dean fled the kitchen and then the house as if his tail was on fire. Sam stood to follow, but Jim knew that Dean wouldn't accept any words from his brother right now. Jim glanced mournfully at the remaining steak on his plate, waved Sam back to his seat and took off after the young Sentinel. It took two miles for Jim to catch up to Dean and even then, it was because Dean decided to slow down. Then they ran, silently, footfalls matching through the grass and the woods. Soon, Dean exceeded Jim's endurance. (And it didn't seem like Dean was even winded yet, how far did he run daily as a part of his 'therapy'?)

Jim wasn't about to let Dean be alone with family revelations, so he retreated into his mind and let the sentinel take over. The sentinel could run for much longer. He could see and hear and smell and taste and feel the world around them, Dean's territory, but he was running on instinct. The pair ran for miles, hearing the buzz of insects and the flapping of birds. They ran through fields and woods and felt the sun and the shade on their skin. They ran near enough to residences to smell lunches and rose gardens.

Dean slowed to a walk. Jim knew that they had circled around Bobby's place but were still ten miles away.

"Jim?" Dean asked.

Jim was too far in the sentinel for a modern answer. "The patrol is not finished."

Dean raised an eyebrow at Jim's cadence, noting a difference. He nodded, though, and picked up the pace. When they were two miles away from Bobby's he slowed again and this time Jim was able to fight through the instincts.

"Better?" he asked.

"Do you think it's possible for my mom to have hidden something in my memory?" Dean asked.

"Yes."

"Yes?" Dean was not expecting such a quick and sure answer. "I was four when she died."

"It's very possible to hiding things in the Sentinel senses, especially if you don't use them for a while. And your mom was probably a Sentinel with generations of notes to search through. I'm sure she could hide something in your memory if she wished. What do you remember?" Jim added the four years old to the trauma of a mother dying, a Sentinel's emotional stress and then an unearth memory. No wonder Dean couldn't stay at the kitchen table a second more.

Dean took a breath of the air and then breathed it out. "Her asking me to find a sprig of lavender in the house. A couple times. She wanted me to sniff it out. Then she hid it and I never found it. She said that she hid a treasure with the lavender." Dean pulled in another shaky breath. "I was upset that I couldn't find it, but she said that it was hidden until I really needed it."

Jim nodded. "Sounds like she hid Sentinel stuff from you, or rather, for you. Just in case you developed Sentinel senses. Blair will be jealous."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Speaking of Blair, can we not mention that I can slide into the sentinel like that?"

"Is that what happened?"

"Yes. It's nothing dangerous. It's still all me. It's not something else wearing me like a demon. It's just… it's running on instincts in a pure form."

"Great. Another thing to look forward to."

"It's not bad and it comes in useful, just Blair would get overly excited."

"Weren't you the one that told me that hiding things from my Guide would get me in trouble?"

"I'm not talking about spikes and zones. Those you have to tell your Guide. This is just asking for tests that I can't get out of."

"You could always tell your Guide 'no'," Dean teased.

"How often do you get away with that?" Jim asked. From what he observed, Sam got whatever he wanted out of his older brother. There might be yelling and bitching, but Sam normally got his way.

"I've been saying it a lot since Tuesday." Since finding out the truth about the black demon in his brother's veins.

Jim believed it. "Do you still own your parents' house?" he asked.

Dean looked relieved at the change in topic. "Nah. But we saved the lives of the family living there. Poltergeist. They'd let us in to sniff around, no problem."

Poltergeist.

Nope. Jim wasn't going to think about that. "That's good. Blair will want to know about the treasure, so you better send him some kind of e-mail so that he doesn't go snooping."

Dean groaned. He led the way around the back buildings of Bobby's yard and then jumped up the steps to the house. "Pack up, Samantha," he yelled, "We're going the Lawrence."

"What? Where?" Sam yelled back. He had yet to get into Blair's habit of not yelling since Sentinels didn't need it to hear. "Lawrence? Kansas?"

"Can you think of any other Lawrence that concerned Mom?" Dean turned to Bobby. "Can you fill in these to yahoos on how to keep safe?"

"Sure." He and Blair were leaning over one of his books. Blair was engrossed in the text and Jim didn't. want. to. know. Spirit animals and spirit lands were just as much as Jim was willing to handle and only when there wasn't any other option.

"All I want to know is how to keep everything _Out_."

Bobby smirked at him. "I've got plenty of books on wards."

"I'll take them." He was willing to build a palisade to protect his territory. He wondered how much work he'd have to put into Ellison Industries to put rail around his town. It would make his father happy if nothing else.

Jim was two pages into the first book when Dean and Sam thundered out of the house and the Impala roared away.

He didn't envy that Sentinel and Guide their journey ahead.

*sntl*spn*


	11. Chapter 11

*sntl*spn*

_I pray that you never find this, Dean. That you will never need this. That you won't inherit the family senses and all the__ responsibilities that come with it. I bargained away your senses as a part of the deal when I asked for John's life back. You are not supposed to become a Hawk until after you die. I can't imagine it mattering then._

"And that's where they found the loophole, Mom," Dean muttered.

Sam grunted from where he was reading over Dean's shoulder (the height freak). "Keep going. She knew that you should have inherited and Sandburg is going to flip over these."

_Your sense of taste has always been off the charts and you explored the world around you by licking everything long after most children stop. I knew that you should have the senses normally –whatever normal is. I impressed a scent memory on you, in case you did develop them through some misfortune. With our family, like with most families of Hawks, the misfortune will come by way of the supernatural. These books contain the records of the family Hawks and how they use their senses to Hunt supernatural. The Hunters are for the run of the mill supernatural, the Hawks are for the demons (we can smell them a mile off) and to keep the Hunters in check. If you become a Hawk, the supernatural will drag you in. I tried to keep you and the rest of my boys out, but the dreams are giving me warnings, I might have done you all a grave and disastrous disservice. I might have left you unprepared for the horror that stalks you. These books might repair that damage so that you can stalk them right back._

_I love you, Deano. I am sorry. Love Mom._

Dean folded up the letter and slid it into the front of his mother's journal, along with the sprig of lavender that had led the Sentinel (He didn't quite think of himself as a Hawk) to the secret bookshelf. As much as Dean pitied those that got dumped into the supernatural deep end, he was pleased that the new owner of his childhood home was in the know. She would let them walk out with the books no questions asked.

They would need boxes. Dean turned around and Sam handed him a heavy duty box, already double taped. Wordlessly, the brothers filled four boxes with their inheritance. They carried them up from the basement and out to the car. Dean let Sam make the small-talk; he didn't have the words to make nice.

He let Sam drive the Impala. He wanted to read more of his mother's words, but Sam accepted the keys like Dean was offering forgiveness for his stupidity and his lies by omission. Dean wasn't (yet) but his anger was beginning to soften.

_The Hunter who hunts with a Hawk is called a Hawker. You will need a Hawker, Dean. I know most Hunters go it alone, but Hawks can't. You'll need someone to help with the senses. Your father was a fantastic Hawker, even though neither of us Hunted. I never told him about the supernatural, of course, but he knew that all of my senses were extra, and he knew the possible pitfalls. And he knew that you might inherit the full sensitivity someday._

_Holding secrets from your Hawker is dangerous and holding anger against them beyond reckless. Your senses will spike to unbearable levels and/or suddenly diminish to nothing. It does you no good and a great deal of harm to hold grudges._

Considering that Dean couldn't hear a thing (the vibrations of the car and the bass of the radio filled in the gaps), his mom was right again. He hadn't told Sam. He hadn't spoken a word to Sam since it came out that he had voluntarily been drinking demon blood, against his express dying wish. _Gee Mom,_ he thought sarcastically. _Can't I have a week of righteous anger?_

Dean sighed. "When you find a good spot to have our fight, pull over. We need to settle this." He was looking at Sam so that he could see the answer. Sam pursed his lips. He was still mad at being told that he had been majorly wrong (and Dean had the chomped black snake to prove it), but for the first time, Dean saw the slightest bit of repentance. Sam nodded once, curtly.

This was going to be an epic, ugly fight, but it needed to happen. Dean wanted his hearing back, but more than that, he wanted his brother back. And Sam could not –under any circumstances- believe that drinking demon blood was an acceptable answer, especially if they would be running into demons in the future. All that crap thinking stopped now.

*sntl*spn*

"Do you think two weeks is too soon to ask for Dean's family journals?" asked Blair.

Jim stopped at stared at his single-minded Guide. "Do I think that two weeks is too soon to ask for the journals of Dean's beloved mother that he watched be murdered when he was _four_? And that he just found out was both a Hunter and a Sentinel? Yes, chief. It's too soon. Leave them alone."

"You heard Bobby," Blair grumbled as he corrected. "A Hunter that is a Sentinel is called a Hawk and their Guides are called Hawkers."

"Leave them alone, chief. They know you're interested. They'll contact you when they're ready."

*sntl*spn*


	12. Some Time in the Future

(Some time in the future)

*sntl*spn*

With one ear, Jim listened to his Guide try to wheedle an early departure from the hospital and an early approval to return to work. The doctor was not budging and Simon wouldn't let Blair back without it. Jim was just happy that his Guide was alive and unharmed enough to attempt the argument. With his other ear, he was listening for the semi-familiar rumble of a certain car pull into the parking lot and then the matched steps of the Hawk and his Hawker (calling them Sentinel and Guide didn't fit as well) make their way through the hospital to Blair's room.

"Come in and end the argument," he whispered to the eavesdroppers. "Please."

"Hey, Sandburg," Dean greeted the invalid cheerfully. "Brought you a get well gift." He held up the battered, well-used five pound tome so that Blair could read the title.

"'The Complete Gaelic-English Dictionary'," Blair read aloud. "Why would I want…" he trailed off as Sam held up the second part of the gift. "You're really loaning me the family journals?!" Blair brightened like a star.

"The first six of the collection," Sam confirmed. "The Campbells started in Scotland and wrote in Gaelic for most of it."

"What'd'ya think, doc?" Dean addressed the previously ignored (and miffed) doctor. "Is translating low key enough? It'll take him six weeks to get through all six journals."

"Eight weeks," the doctor corrected. "It'll take eight weeks for complete healing."

Blair didn't even hear the pronouncement as he was making grabby hands at the stack of books in Sam's possession. The doctor looked relieved at the lack of argument (and whining) and excused himself while the getting was good.

Blair tilted his head back at Sam once he had the first book in front of him. "Aren't you two fluent in Gaelic? You haven't translated it into English yet?"

"Yes we are and sure we have, Sandburg," Dean said. His mother had taught him much to the surprise of everyone who knew the boisterous young man. He was still cheerful in the midst of the bittersweet memories. "But we know how you are about original documents."

Blair nodded. It was true. "I want your translations too," he demanded.

"They're in the car," Sam answered. "I'll get them later."

Blair was thrilled. Jim sent Dean a nod of thanks. These books were precious to the Hawk but he had shared them to help in Jim's Guide's healing.

Dean nodded in return. The two were long past keeping count of personal debts. They listened as Sam explained to Blair that the Hunters' term 'Hawk' was probably because the first Sentinel/Hunter of the Campbell line had had a Hawk as a Spirit Guide. And at that time people hunted with hawks for rabbit and grouse, and those people were called Hawkers, so of course, the Guides were referred to as Hawkers as well. Blair leaned back (and stopped stressing that damned knife wound in his stomach) to listen to Sam expound on the family history.

Jim could finally relax. Blair smelled less of death and more of life. Making the phone call to Dean had been a very wise choice.

*sntl*spn*


	13. Chapter 13

*stnl*spn*

Dean thought of her as the Garden Lady and though he have never exchanged more than a wave with the elderly woman as he jogged past her place five times a week, he knew a number of things about her. She loved her garden and weeding was not a chore but a joy. Every plant was carefully tended. Her garden was far bigger than what she could possibly consume. Seriously, she could have fed herself from a plot a quarter that size.

She was a widow and retired if she had ever worked. She wore her wedding ring even in the garden but she was quick to clean it. Dean had never smelled a live man in her tiny house, but occasionally he could smell mothballs and male. Dean was pretty sure she had kids and grandkids (and possibly great grandkids); she returned from every holiday smelling of happy babies. She was a devout Catholic, often humming or singing hymns as she tended her plants, in Latin if needed. It took Dean a couple weeks and a light conversation with Sammy about Pastor Jim to realize that her singing wasn't bad or off, she was simply singing the alto/harmony part of each song instead of the melody.

Dean always ran the trail that edged the back of her property fence so he could see how the plants were supposed to develop. She had started the habit of leaving a glass of ice water on the corner fence post for him and would sometimes chat with him about how this plant or that plant was doing in the current weather. The knowledge could be useful. Sammy was talking about having a garden next year. Dean wanted to get back on the road and hunt the supernatural. He had never zoned while on his run. He was thinking of many things with each footfall. (Sandburg was pretty sure that since he was paying attention to his heart rate as well as everything else that he couldn't concentrate on any one sense, even hearing, since his heart rate would automatically slow down and snap him out of any zone.) He spiked at least once a day, but with the exercises with Sammy suggested by Sandburg, and those mentioned in his mother's books, he was improving rapidly.

Sam was trying to follow the example of previous Hawks and Hawkers; keeping a house and protecting a smaller territory from the supernatural. Dean wanted to be more proactive than that.

There was also the niggling feeling and mystery of _how_ Dean had managed to escape Hell. His memories were thankfully fuzzy of that time period, as were his memories of waking up and stumbling his way to Bobby's and then Sam's presence. Dean only remembered great pain during that time. He had vacillated between spikes of multiple senses and then zones. Knowing what he now knew, it was a sheer miracle that he had managed to get his broken and over stimulated body to safety.

Today as Dean approached Garden Lady's property, there was no ice water on the fence post. The rich loam of her dirt didn't smell moist; she hadn't watered today. Dean didn't think that it was any holiday but he had never been good at keeping track of those things. Dean was never one for ignoring his instincts and his instincts told him something was wrong. He cranked up his hearing and placed one hand on her wooden fence, hoping that the roughness under his touch would prevent a hearing induced zone.

Dean couldn't hear any movement and then a soft prayer, "_Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name._" A shaky sob interrupted her plea. "_Please, please send someone to check on me_."

Dean jumped the fence and ran for the back door. He couldn't smell blood, but he could smell pain and only her, no strangers. He banged on the door. "Garden Lady!? Garden Lady! Are you there?" He was already looking around the garden for something he could use to smash through the window and open the door. Hey, that stone dog would be perfect.

"I'm here," the Garden Lady tried to shout. Dean wasn't sure if a regular person would have been able to hear her, but if she thought that she had called for help she probably wouldn't be upset or frightened or suspicious of his sudden appearance. "Help me, please!" _Thank you, Father,_ she whispered.

Dean smashed the door window and unlocked it from the inside. He hurried through the house, grabbing the cordless kitchen phone on his way to the bathroom and the Garden Lady's too fast heartbeat. "It's Dean," he called. "The running guy." He knocked on the bathroom door. "Can I come in?"

She gave a watery chuckle. "Please and call an ambulance."

Dean was dialing 911 as he opened the door. She was on the floor in her nightgown, stuck. Even through her pain, she was horribly embarrassed to be caught undressed. Dean smiled at her and with a feather-light touch examined her. Broken hip and so very cold. Summer might be in full swing outside, but between the AC and the cold floor, she had taken a chill. He conveyed all of this to the emergency dispatcher, along with her road address.

"Where are your blankets?" he asked her.

She directed him to a closet down the hall. He grabbed the warmest blanket and wrapped her tight, oh so gentle so as not to jostle her and cause more pain.

"Loretta," she said softly. "My name is Loretta."

Dean offered her his best flirtatious grin. "I'm Dean. It's so nice to meet you."

The dispatched asked a question over the phone and Dean reluctantly relayed it. "They want to know how old you are. I know better than to ask a woman's age, but medical people? Pfft."

She rewarded him with a pain filled smile, but told him, "Seventy-eight."

"Any drugs?"

"High blood pressure." She pointed to the bathroom mirror. "In the medicine cabinet."

The paramedics would want that, so Dean grabbed it while he had time. He also grabbed the handful of different types of vitamins and supplements. "They want me to go outside and direct them in," he told Garden La-eh- Loretta.

"Please don't leave me," she whispered.

Dean could understand her fear. It close to lunch and she had obviously fallen before breakfast. He told the dispatcher that the back door was open… for certain definitions of open. He stayed with her and held her hand and listened to the sirens quickly approaching. "You got family you need called?" he asked her.

"A daughter and two sons. My daughter is a nurse at the hospital." Loretta frowned, her mind not working a full capacity. "I think she's working the day shift today."

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"Yes. It's off, charging in the bedroom."

He heard the back door open and other people stepping on the glass mess he had made. "This way," he called. He gave Loretta's hand one last squeeze and then scooted out of the bathroom and out of the way. He followed the hallway to the bedroom and found the phone. While he was waiting for the paramedics to strap Loretta to a backboard and put her on the gurney, he made the bed. The bedroom wasn't neat, per se, but it wasn't cluttered either. A framed picture of Loretta and a frail old man graced the bedside, both of them smiling. Dean found her old-lady purse and stuffed the prescriptions, the phone and the charger and the picture inside. As healthy as Loretta apparently was, a broken bone was not going to lend itself to a quick recovery at her age.

He handed the purse off to the more mature paramedic (the other one looked like she was barely eighteen) and promised to lock up behind him. He waved at Loretta one last time as she was lifted into the ambulance. Then he spotted the slight reflections of light buried in the carpets. Dean, but especially the paramedics had tracked broken glass all over the house. He didn't like the idea of Loretta eventually returning to the house to possibly injure herself again. He painstakingly picked up every shard. When he returned to the kitchen and the bulk of the mess, he found the reason why the paramedics were willing to leave someone obviously without a key alone in a house; a Sheriff was crouched in the middle of the glass pieces, examining the stone statue.

"That goes outside, by the pink flowers," Dean told her as he dumped the handful of glass into the kitchen garbage.

She stared at him. She was about Bobby's age, decent looking with sharp eyes. Her name tag read 'MILLS.' "Who are you?"

"Dean. I live at Singer's junkyard."

"What were you doing here?"

"I run the back trail," he nodded past the garden and the chest high fence, "almost every day." It was the common part of the trail to every other path Dean ran during the week.

She raised an eyebrow. "The junkyard is almost twenty miles away."

"That's why I didn't get here until the afternoon."

She nodded slowly. "How did you know something was wrong?"

Sheriff Mills was relaxing in degrees so Dean looked around until he found the broom and dustpan. He could sweep and talk at the same time. He wasn't too worried about a background check. Sam had worked hard on his fake identification. Dean didn't bother to carry his driver's license or cell phone when he ran. According to the state of South Dakota, he was Dean Smith. That's all Mills would find… hopefully. "Loretta normally leaves me a glass of ice water about the time I run by, even if she's inside. No water and it looks like she didn't water her garden either, today. So I knocked on the backdoor to check and heard her yelling." He motioned to the stone dog. "That was the fastest way in."

Mills nodded and turned to put the statue back where it belonged, also getting out of Dean's way so that he could sweep up the last of the shards. He could smell discarded food in the garbage bag and so he drew it out of the can and tied it tight. Loretta had garbage pickup tomorrow. Dean could drag it out to the road now.

By the time Dean returned to the house, Mills had found a hammer, nails and a scrap of wood from Loretta patching the fence to keep out the rabbits. She covered the broken window and locked up behind them.

She offered her hand to Dean. "It was good to meet you," she told him as they shook. "Thanks for taking care of Mrs. Granger. She's good people. Her canned goods keeps the homeless shelters well stocked all winter."

Dean didn't have anything to say to that. This conversation had pretty much exceeded his capacity for 'normal.' Mills watched him run through the garden and hop the fence. Dean took off at his normal smooth pace and put Mills, Loretta and everyone else far from his thoughts. He didn't mind helping in the little ways, but he was made for more. He was born for kicking supernatural ass. The sooner he got a handle on this Sentinel stuff and left, the better for all involved.

*stnl*spn*

Dean didn't tell anyone (re: Bobby or Sammy) about the incident. Bobby found out because Sheriff Mills had stopped by to confirm at least Dean's place of residence. If Sam found out, he didn't let Dean know. Dean still ran past Loretta's house every day, to ensure that nothing happened to it while she was in the hospital. He had managed to ignore the garden for a couple days before the droopy plants got to him. Loretta had the garden hose right there, so he hopped the fence and watered the garden. The next day, the plants looked better but still not recovered. So he watered again. Dean watered every damn day and wished that he could just let it go, but he kept remembering about what Mills said about what would happen to the fruits of this labor. He couldn't let the least fortunate starve if it meant only an hour out of his day, and it wasn't like he had anywhere to be. When a stray weed popped out of the ground, Dean plucked it and threw it on Loretta's compost pile because, well because.

Dean hadn't meant to be around when Loretta saw her garden for the first time since her fall, he had just happened to hear Loretta and another woman arguing about it as he approached the property.

"Mom, no. I haven't had the time to look at it. It's been a dry summer, I'm sure nothing's alive."

"I want to see."

"Mom, I don't want to see you disappointed or upset."

"I want to see."

"Mom. If you see it, you'll try to do something, try to save it and then you'll stress your fracture."

"Lauren. I'm not going garden, I just want to see."

"No, you'll see and you'll wonder how much you can salvage and then you'll guilt trip me into doing something."

"Lauren. Let me see my garden."

Dean had to chuckle about the immoveable force of Loretta Granger. He picked up his pace so that he could see her reaction to all the living and productive plants. He wasn't disappointed. Lauren looked gob smacked and Loretta's hands were clasped together and her eyes were shining as she sat in a wheelchair. Lauren was the very image of her mother at fifty-ish, kind eyes and strong, competent hands. She was rarely surprised like this. "Maybe Luke or Mark?" she wondered.

"No. Your brothers took care of all the bills –household and hospital- but they wouldn't have thought to hire someone to water and weed my garden. And they would have warned you."

"Mr. Talbot?" Lauren suggested.

"David can barely take care of his own garden, let alone mine." Loretta spotted Dean over the back fence. "Dean! Did you do this?"

Dean shrugged. "I was by here every day anyways. It didn't take much to water a couple plants."

"Thank you. Thank you so very much. You even weeded some too."

"Welcome."

Loretta was all smiles. "Now come in here and pick everything that's ripe. It's near rotting on the vine."

"Mom, no." Lauren groaned. "I don't mind the garden and cooking but you know I hate canning."

"Lauren," Loretta started up in that same determined voice.

"Actually," Dean spoke up. "I've got food allergies and my brother's been wanting to learn how to can to accommodate them. What do you say to using your produce and know-how and me and my brother's labor? You get to do what you normally do with it."

"Deal. But you are taking home your fair share. Lauren get my canning recipe book and a pen and paper and Dean, you call your brother and have him stop at the homeless shelter on Twelfth Street. Lauren will have to call them and tell them that he's picking up all of the empty jars. Dean, come in the gate and start picking."

Dean was chuckling as he eschewed the gate further down the yard and jumped the fence. "I'm going to need your phone to call Sam, first."

"You know where the phone is," the old woman told him archly.

Dean didn't argue as he headed for the house. Loretta grabbed his wrist on his way by. "Thank you. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

"You want me to wheel you into the house?" he offered.

Loretta gave him a stern look. "No. I want to sit here and appreciate my garden. It's… exactly what I need."

Lauren returned outside with a thick binder and the requested pen and paper. Loretta started a grocery list. "Dean, what are your allergies? We might as well work around them. Can't have you getting ill in the middle of canning."

"Pretty much all pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Anything too acidic and processed gives me problems as well."

Loretta hmmed. Loretta had never used any manufactured chemicals on her garden as far as Dean could tell.

"You need the phone," Lauren offered.

Dean smiled and followed the woman into the house. A quick phone call to Sam and his baby brother was stupidly thrilled at the idea of learning how to can from someone experienced. He had put in enough hours to be able to leave the newspaper office early and he knew where the homeless shelter was. He was on his way before they ended the call.

Lauren took the phone and dialed the shelter. She informed them that Sam was coming.

"Six and half feet of floppy hair and puppy smiles," Dean described for her.

Lauren smirked and passed it on. She grabbed onto Dean's wrist before he could escape back out to the garden, just like her mother had. "You're the one that found her, aren't you?"

Dean nodded.

"And cleaned up the glass and took out the trash."

"I was the one that broke the glass," he reminded her.

"Thank you. So very much. It scares me how long Mom could have waited before we realized that she was in trouble. Jody told me that you just happened to notice that she hadn't watered her garden."

"Jody?"

"Mills."

"Sheriff," Dean realized.

"She's an old friend of mine. Thank you for being observant and seeing a need and responding to that need."

Dean was blushing. He had received less heartfelt thanks for saving people's lives. "I think your mom's calling me," he lied. "She wants me to start picking right away."

Lauren let him go. Loretta was waiting. She wanted him to pick the green and yellow beans first. She might not be able to do much of the canning, but she could surely clean and tip-n-tail the beans while everyone else was busy. Lauren came outside to accept the grocery list and to kiss her mother on the cheek. Dean resigned himself to a long day of following orders

*stnl*spn*

Dean sprawled in a living room chair, a glass of water in one hand and a still hot slice of zucchini bread in the other. Lauren had returned to the house with bags and bags of groceries from the store but also freshly slaughtered chicken and chicken and duck eggs and goat's milk and butter from down the road. He hadn't had butter since he had returned from Hell and it tasted delicious.

He was exhausted. The rest of them were still going strong. Loretta had taken a nap in the middle at her daughter's insistence but other than that, he was the weakling. Lauren might not like canning, but she knew it well enough to direct the brothers. Thanks to Loretta's garden and experience they had over a hundred mason jars of canned beans, chicken and vegetable soup, pickles, tomatoes and a type of homemade V8 that was really closer to V20. The drink was surprisingly delicious and used up less than perfect vegetables of all shapes and sizes, pureed, strained and then canned . Dean could hear the air being pushed out of the sparkling glass jars as they sealed one by one.

A hand on his shoulder startled him out of the zone. Dean shrugged at his brother's questioning look and took a bite of the now-warm bread. He had always thought that zucchini bread had sounded too healthy to be delicious but Loretta had proved him wrong. Sam wandered back to his conversation with Lauren and Loretta. The nerd had shown up with the boxes and boxes of canning jars from the homeless shelter but also a spiral notebook to write down recipes and instructions from canning. He was cheerfully picking the women's brains. He had kept up the easy dialogue throughout all of the cleaning and cooking and thankfully had distracted them from Dean's fugues and random spikes.

Dean heard the oven door open and close again and could smell yet another loaf of zucchini bread and also something that smelled of chocolate. That was Lauren. She had cooked and baked the vegetables into things that could be frozen and then used later by either her family, Dean's family or the homeless shelter.

"He has PTSD," Lauren stated quietly. If Dean hadn't been a Sentinel, he wouldn't have heard her.

"Yes," Sam answered. His heartbeat didn't change, he truly believed it. "But the running is helping. He's getting better. He just needs time."

"Send him my way whenever," Loretta offered. "We're going to need to can again in a couple of days."

Dean heard the heavy crinkle of aluminum foil.

"I'll plan on it," Sam promised.

"Here," Lauren offered. "Zucchini brownies, to tempt him. He needs to up his calorie intake. He's thin as a rail."

"He's normally runs past here about noon, so he's not eating lunch. Do you think I could tempt him to eat with me?" Loretta asked.

"Probably not yet. But he'd never turn down a cookie or two, as long as his stomach was cooperating."

"Lemonade?" Lauren suggested.

"Too acidic and strong," Sammy told them. "Keep with the water. Pie is his weakness."

Dean would normally be upset that they were talking about him, but he was too tired and Lauren and Loretta were too good of cooks.

"It's too late for strawberry rhubarb and too early for apple unless you pay for them through the nose at the farmer's market. What about peach?" Loretta asked.

"He'd eat peach."

"Then I'll have a peach pie for him come Wednesday when you return for more canning. You can take your share of today home then."

"Thanks. He'll love it. I better get him home."

"You take care of him."

"I will."

Sam appeared before Dean. He took the half eaten piece of zucchini bread out of Dean's hand and added it to the rest of their food booty. He handed the empty glass of water to Lauren and then helped Dean stand. He ushered Dean out the door and to the passenger's side of the Impala. Dean fell asleep before they pulled into Bobby's driveway and he didn't really remember being guided to his bed.

But he slept. Oh, he slept so well.

*stnl*spn*


	14. Chapter 14

*sntl*spn*

County Sheriff Jody Mills had served the area for a number of years; one of two women in a male dominated department. She had seen it all, she had done it all and nothing had changed since the brothers had moved out to the Singer Junkyard. Jody was probably one of the few that knew that the boys were step-brothers and had different last names. Around town, they were referred to simply as the 'Singer Boys.' Sam might not know that, but Dean definitely did. Bobby Singer had gone positively soft the first time that he heard the nomenclature. The town would have to be blind to miss the love he (gruffly) showered on them. Bobby would come into town every other day –or more- and would 'just so happen to be' somewhere as Dean jogged by. He was checking in on the runner.

That boy ran the outskirts of town like a bat out of hell. He was also silent as a ghost. He kept a sharp eye and reacted to changes. Jody had been very impressed that he had realized something was wrong with Ms. Loretta. Dean ran like demons were nipping at his heels. Then Lauren confirmed the PTSD assumption. She and Ms. Loretta had the most gossip on the brothers since the two families were helping each other out with the harvest. Lauren (and Jody) didn't know where Dean had served, only that it had been the worst of the worst. Dean was quiet, but by his quick, practiced flirtatious smile, she was sure that it was a new development.

Sam had taken a job at the newspaper office. It wasn't long before he was wandering around town, trying to sell e-mail subscriptions. The folks that signed up were pleased with the coverage and so Jody only hemmed and hawed a little when it was her turn to sign up. She agreed to it on the conditional promise to come to her first with any crime. She didn't want to find out about new crimes from her e-mail. He agreed.

Jody figured out with the first e-mail that for the most part, Sam had conned her into paying for a daily summary of her own findings. Damn, that boy would get far on his smile. Though with the webpage he set up, she could do a search of crimes by geography. It turned out to be useful when a spat of burglaries plagued the town. The people on the north end were missing small valuables, like a family brooch and diamond earrings that had been set down on the back porch. The south side of town had thieves breaking into vacant houses to steal the copper. None of the local metal recycle plants were admitting to a buttload of copper and there were no witnesses and a time frame of weeks before someone realized the theft. (In the first cases, it had been the property realtor.) Also there were two inhabited houses that had been burglarized. In the last house, the owner had been beaten severely. It didn't look like she was going to make it. She still hadn't woken from her coma.

After several dead ends, she cornered Dean on the corner of Maple and Park roads, immediately before the man's normal Thursday route traversed the less populated areas. If anyone might have witnessed people out of place in town, it would be Dean. He was good-natured about stopping when she flashed her car red/blue lights at his approaching.

"Am I speeding, Sheriff?" he teased.

"You're a public menace," Jody retorted. "Do you know how many close calls we've had with people watching you and not where they're driving?"

"I could give them more of a show," Dean offered, but he made no move to take off his shirt. The man always ran in pants and combat boots. Jody wasn't surprised; Lauren had glimpsed a couple of nasty scars and a tattoo.

Jody informed him, "You know half the town thinks that you're training for a marathon." Dean rolled his eyes at that suggestion. "And the other half thinks that you should open up shop as a matchmaker. Jim Wedge has been walking on air and telling everyone."

Dean actually _blushed_. "I haven't done anything," he protested. "I don't know any Jim Wedge."

Jody scoffed. "James? The older EMT when Ms. Loretta fell. Telling Jimmy Lauren's favorite restaurant is a public service. The whole town's known he's been soft on her since he was fifteen and the high school awarded valedictorian to Rob Wilkins over Lauren. He protested in the middle of graduation, but Lauren wasn't going to even get near her little brother's best friend. He was thrilled that she moved closer, as much as he didn't want Ms. Loretta health to deteriorate he likes that Lauren's back."

Dean laughed at the idea. "He was mooning over her constantly. It was ridiculous and they're so old now, age doesn't matter. Every time after Sam and I had been invited to Loretta's house, he stopped me after to ask how Lauren was. I told him to man up and ask her out so that I could run in peace. That doesn't count as matchmaking."

For the 'they're so old' comment, Jody was going to drag every one of Dean's actions into the light. Her and Lauren's birth dates were within weeks of each other and that wasn't old at all. "So what was telling the new guy Espinosa that he really wanted to run the Meadow Trail on Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven o'clock? That was 100% matchmaking."

"He nearly hurt himself on the Beech Trail. I was giving him other places to run. That was about his safety."

"If you hadn't encouraged Gwen's Terrors to turn into a constantly changing hellish obstacle course, he wouldn't have gotten hurt."

"I am not the only one that enjoys that trail on Thursdays."

True. Anyone that was considering joining the military tried out the trail every Thursday, along with many of the local law enforcement if they were off-duty. Even Jody had run it once. And since the Terrors were working on the obstacle course, they weren't cause trouble in town. This was the first time that the boys hadn't been accused of the local petty thefts. "Yes, but you gave him a place and time that Mia Jackson runs."

Dean grinned. "I told him when the sight was going to be the prettiest. They just happen to have a matching stride."

"Once old Tyrell got over the idea of his precious baby girl dating a Hispanic, he was thrilled. Mia's looking for a job here and will probably stick around. I think you managed to kill the last little vestiges of racism he had. Mia's mom, on the other hand, was hoping that she'd go East and make something of herself."

Dean shrugged. "Then she's not paying attention. The economy's better here and this place is cheaper than anyplace East. She'll get over it once her daughter starts popping out grandbabies."

"Soon, you think?" Jody asked, honestly curious. The runner was three for three on the matchmaking. How far did he see?

Dean shrugged. "Couple years. They're going to have a lot of fun first."

"What about Megan Siegel and Matt Delattre? Are they going to wait until after college?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean denied.

Jody laughed at him. "You managed to pry the head cheerleader away from the football captain and into the arms of the geek everyone knows is the next Steve Jobs and you're going to deny it. The Siegels want to put up a statue in your image. Everyone knew that Dennis Karst had a girl on the side–a cheerleader from a rival team…"

"More than that," Dean muttered. "Guy's not picky, but he's not sloppy about it either."

Jody gaped for a moment. "He was good enough that Megan didn't know. Now Megan's concentrating on her studies and has already been accepted at the University in the business department. She and Matt are laying the groundwork for their future company." Jody shook her head at the turn around. "What did you say to her?"

"That football careers end in a moment because of injury and football players don't need help, they need trophies. Geeks won't get their careers off the ground without marketing, no matter how good the product."

Jody knew that it had to be more than that to get through the teenage haze of emotions and hormones, but Dean was looking cornered. "The whole town is waiting with baited breath wondering who you're going to set up next."

Dean jerked his chin her direction. "And you. What do you think? You didn't stop my run for gossip."

Jody reached into her squad car and pulled out the case files. "I brought you some dead-end cases hoping you'll have a lead. You run the whole town, you might have seen something useful."

"Okay." Dean brightened at the idea. He skimmed through the files impressively fast and separated the cases into piles. He piled the home invasions in with the copper theft.

"You think they're related?"

"They're in the same area and both of the home invasion houses look like they're abandoned. They go in for the pipes and they go in in the morning when most people are at work and or running errands. I think they wear uniforms pretending to be from the electric company or whatever. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what I saw in that time frame. For the other two houses, they went into seemingly abandoned homes, found them occupied and tried to grab everything of worth before the owners returned. The one lady got home from grocery shopping too soon."

"What about the individual thefts?" Due to the diamond earrings and the very old emerald Vdhoeven ring, she couldn't call it petty theft. The Pelletier brooch wasn't worth much but it was an antique like the ring.

"I don't know yet."

"These are police files," Jody told Dean. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell your brother about it. Especially about our lack of leads. I don't want featured in his paper."

Dean looked optimistic. "I won't tell Sammy if you don't tell him about, you know, the… eh."

"Matchmaking?" Jody guessed. "Your brother's entire job is wrapped up in talking to everyone in town," Jody reminded him. "I'm sure he's heard already. But if he hasn't, he won't hear it from me."

Dean sighed. "I guess that's the best I can ask for. What's your phone number?"

Jody told him.

He didn't draw out his phone (did he even have a phone on him?) or ask to write it down. He simply paused for a moment and then nodded and then promised to be in touch.

"No phone," she queried

"Nah. I've finally got to the point where I don't have to check in every hour on the hour. If I took my phone now, Sammy would track me like a migrating bird if I gave him half a chance." Dean sounded more amused and fond then irritated at the invasion of privacy. "The worrywart. Don't worry, I won't forget and I'll text if I see anything."

Jody watched him run off and wondered if any good would develop from her hunch.

*sntl*spn*

The first contact from Dean was an residential address in a text: 'Four guys. Two guns and a garage full of copper.'

Jody gathered a team to arrest them. The takedown was smooth and without a shot fired. It took an hour to get one to turn on the others and to confess to the home invasions and to point a finger at who had beaten the home owner. It took days to file all of the paperwork and to appear in court to put the foursome away for a very long time.

A week later, Jody was resting her eyes when Dean sent her a second text. It was a town park with some nice walking trails. It wasn't somewhere Dean normally ran since too many other people used it. Dean followed up the first text with a second: 'Wear hiking boots and clothes that can get dirty.'

Okay.

Jody texted back '30 min.'

Dean was waiting at the entrance of the park with a sturdy rope wound around his shoulder.

"What's that for?" Jody asked.

"I'm pretty sure that our opportunist thief is a bird. I'm going to pull you up so that you can look at the nest."

"You're kidding me," Jody said.

"Nah. I'm pretty sure I saw the raven carrying the brooch weeks ago, but it took a while to find the right nest."

Dean was serious. Jody had to readjust her thinking to include a kleptomaniac bird. "I have heard that sometimes ravens will fly off with something shiny, but…"

Dean smirked at her, as amused at the idea as she was. "Yeah. But it rained and it's muddy and off the main trail. We're going to get dirty."

"I can handle dirt," Jody promised.

Oh boy, was there dirt. She had slipped and fallen in the mud several times. Dean had too, but not nearly to the same extent. She was filthy from head to toe by the time Dean stopped at the foot of a tree. Jody wasn't sure how Dean was so sure that this was the place since she couldn't see any tracks of him visiting here. Dean let her rest and knotted one end of the rope into a rather secure foothold. The rest of the rope he threw over a higher branch. Ah. Jody could see a nest now.

"You're sure?" She asked as she put her foot in the rope step.

"Yeah. You'll see in a minute." Then using the branch as a fulcrum, he pulled and pulled until she was level with the branch. Jody reached out and grabbed the nest. Thankful that there weren't any chicks inside. It was a little late in the year for that. She did see several sparkles and so held the next tight as Dean lowered her to the ground.

Once on solid ground, Jody examined her prize. Right on top was a cheap plastic unicorn bracelet, but under it was the brooch. "Interesting taste," Jody murmured.

Dean huffed a laugh and Jody hadn't meant for that to be heard. She had barely said it aloud. Dean reached for the bracelet and he actually examined the toy jewelry closer than he did the real. Those he didn't try to touch. "You know the little black-haired pig-tailed girl four… no five houses from the Pelletiers?"

"Yes. That's the Dorans."

"I think this is hers."

"You're kidding me."

"I could be wrong," Dean said defensively.

"I'll drop it off if it is hers. Only one earring," Jody noticed as she sorted through the raven's treasures. She examined the earring in question.

"Tell Ross to check under her porch. I think it fell when the bird stole the one."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

After the fact that Dean had tracked the jewelry down to a bird's nest, Jody was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Isabella Ross was not going to be pleased. She had been so sure of theft, even supplied a list of people who hated her and had been jealous of her jewels. Jody resigned herself to crawling under Ross's porch to find the second one. She'd get this muddy again, then. The Lord knew that prissy Isabella wouldn't.

"The Vdhoeven ring isn't here either."

Dean shrugged. "Still looking. Did you know that there's a curse attached to the ring? Maybe it's better that it's lost."

Jody laughed at the joke. Sure the Vdhoevens had had a string of bad luck for years, no one really believed in the curse. The family was merely exceptionally clumsy; every member had been in Lauren's ER annually, and the father at least twice, so it wasn't domestic abuse. Dean unknotted the rope and wrapped it up. He slung it over his shoulder and across his chest easily. "Thank you for this," she said, raising the nest. "No one would have imagined this."

Dean shrugged and led the way back to the parking lot. Jody was going to Isabella's first and digging out that other earring while she was filthy, but she might stop home for a shower after that before delivering the other treasures.

*sntl*spn*

Little Zina Doran was as thrilled with the return of her cheap plastic unicorn bracelet as Florence Pelletier was with her mother's brooch. She certainly jumped higher, Jody later reported to Lauren.

Jody joked with Lauren that Dean was her unofficial 'consulting detective' and thanked God that he wasn't as difficult to deal with at Sherlock Holmes. Lauren had turned her serious face on Jody and told her that maybe making it official would be a good thing for Dean. She wouldn't let it go until Jody promised to look into it. Jody grumbled but Lauren had always been her conscience.

*sntl*spn*

After a week of no contact from Dean, she texted him at dawn. 'Meet?'

An hours later, Dean texted back 'noon at the park.'

Jody agreed and was waiting when Dean exited the park trail at a steady jog and stopped at her squad car in the parking lot.

Jody handed him a check.

"What's this?"

"The reward money for the Pelletier brooch and half of the Ross earrings. I'm claiming the other half since I was the one that crawled under Isabella's porch."

Dean sniggered at her, but pocketed the check.

"Any luck on the ring?"

Dean shook his head. "But I'll keep an eye out."

Considering that their big thief had been a bird, Jody appreciated it. She still didn't know how he had figured it out and tracked down the nest. "Let me know if anything develops."

Dean nodded.

"So you solved everything but the Vdhoeven ring." Jody could appreciate that. "I don't suppose you know anything about the Perkins fire?"

"Perkins?" Dean sounded curious.

"Old house to the East. Kids swear it's haunted. It burned down two days ago." She was just starting her investigation. If Dean had a clue, it would speed things along.

"I smelled it," Dean admitted, "but haven't heard anything."

"That's because you make gossip, you don't hear it," Jody accused.

Dean shrugged. "I gotta get going. Unless you want me to look around."

Jody waved him away. She needed to put some effort into doing her own job. Later, when she was researching the Perkins house (and it would be nice if the arson investigator would give her a firm yes or no) she realized that before the Perkins, the house was owned by the Vdhoevens. They had lost it to pay medical bills in a previous generation. She would dig into that possible connection.

*sntl*spn*

Jim was trying to ignore Blair. The Guide was reading his e-mail and casting scheming and gleefully mischievous looks Jim's way. He was reading something from Sam and Jim wondered what Dean had done now. Subtle, he was not. Blair or Dean.

"Ask, Sandburg," Jim demanded. "No blind studies or leading questions."

"Are you good at match-making too?"

It was a good thing Jim wasn't drinking or he would have made a fool out of himself. "_What_?"

"Dean apparently matched up three different couples in the last month. I mean it makes perfect sense, as a protector of the tribe, making sure the tribe is strong is extremely important and the tribe had to be made up of strong families. You know, I now that I think about it, I think it was hinted at in both my German and Japanese texts, but do Sentinels do it by scent, you know pheromones or something else?"

Oh, was Jim going to harass Dean for bringing this shit down on the older Sentinel. "It's a combination," Jim threw his partner a bone.

Sandburg perked up like a hound dog on a scent. "Really? Of what? So you can do it?"

"Well, I haven't. But I know which relationships are going to fail and how fast, from the couple's first meeting, by how much they lie to each other and how attracted they are to each other and why they're attracted. It makes sense that Dean could encourage the couples that are going to make it work for a decade or two. People change enough in that time that there are no certainties. Some change faster."

"You know how long my relationships are going to last?" Blair was aghast.

Jim smugly answered, "I'm not allowed to bet in the pool at work anymore."

"Why don't you say anything when I meet them?"

"One, as long as they're not murderers, it's your business. Two, you're not interested in a long-term relationship now."

Blair wanted to protest, but truly, Jim was correct. "How do you know?"

Jim wasn't sure if he wanted to answer. Blair had asked mostly as a rhetorical question. "There's this… settling in a person's scent when they are open to a serious, long-term relationship. I don't know how to explain it."

Blair's face took on the look of someone about to dive deep into a research project. Jim knew what would be occupying his partner's free time for the next month.

*sntl*spn*


	15. Chapter 15

*sntl*spn*

Jody Mills called Dean's cell phone. When it got shunted to voice mail, she hung up and called Singer's Salvage. Bobby Singer answered gruffly, "Singer."

"Amber Alert," Jody skipped any pleasantries. "Where's Dean? The trail leads into the woods. I want him on a search team."

"Who? Where?" and surprisingly, that was not a civilian flailing but an officer cutting to the chase to get only pertinent details.

"Little Zina Doran –Dean found her bracelet a while ago- and her best friend Machala vanished from the Doran backyard."

"I'll send Sam and Dean immediately." He hung up and Jody wondered what good Dean's younger brother would do, but then she was occupied with organizing different search parties and trying to keep Beth and Roger Doran and Carine and Michael Gray calm and checking all of the registered sex offenders in the area and keeping the news media out of the way and…

She got a text from Dean. 'Found them. On our way to Dorans. Will need 1 ambulance for broken leg.'

She stopped and stared and…

Dean had never lied to her before and Jody couldn't imagine his starting now, when emotions were so high. Still, it was too easy. How had they found the girls so fast? She didn't tell the Dorans or the Grays, just in case something went wrong, but she did send for an ambulance crew.

Dean and Sam walked out of the woods about the same time that Jimmy and his young EMT partner, Susan, arrived. Zina was asleep in Sam's arms and Machala was crying in Dean's. Her leg was splinted up, experience was obvious despite the rags.

Machala wailed the truth to her parents as soon as they grabbed her. The two had wandered off, gotten lost, Machala had fallen and broken her leg and then Zina had refused to leave her. Two silly little girls that could have been killed. It could have been so much worse. Dean had some tracking skills, Sam was proud to point out and it wasn't like the girls had been hiding. The children had responded as soon as Dean and Sam had gotten close enough that their voices could be heard. Sam was eager to inform the parents that they had two very smart and good little girls. Staying together had helped them get found sooner. The parents only wanted to hold their little girls tight. Jody had to work a bit to get them to let go so that Jim Wedge could do his job.

Jody turned around to question Dean and Sam extensively on their perspective but they were gone, slipped away in the chaos.

Jody comforted herself that Sam would probably have as front page news on the Sioux Falls Sentinel webpage. She could read what happened with the rest of town.

*sntl*spn*

Jody stared blankly at her computer screen. The Sentinel didn't have Zina and Machala's adventures as front page news. Instead it was a tiny blip in the police blotter section, with no mention of the brothers that had found the girls. The omission was glaring. She hadn't thought that either of the Singer boys were _humble_. But what other explanation was there?

*sntl*spn*

Knowing what she knew about the Singer boys, Jody skipped the middle man and called up Sam Wesson at the Sioux Falls newspaper.

He answered on the second ring. "Sioux Falls Sentinel. This is Sam."

"This is Sheriff Mills. Where's Dean?"

"He's out running Sheriff." Miraculously, Sam wasn't sounding patronizing. Instead it was closer to a 'calm the witness/victim' voice Jody had used on countless.

"He's been using an iPhone for music," Jody said. Granted Dean's earbuds had been tied around his neck rather than in his ears, but it counted. Jody could understand someone with PTSD not want to block out sound. Jody knew from her background search that Dean had never been in the military. He had never claimed it, everyone had merely assumed, but the PTSD was unmistakable. The disorder happened for many more people than soldiers. "He once said that if he ran with his phone you would track him like an animal during migration. We have another Amber Alert, Toby Inoue, seven years old. I need Dean at the elementary school immediately."

"We'll be there in twenty," Sam promised before he hung up.

A very grimly amused voice in Jody's head pointed out that Sam hadn't denied tracking his brother.

*sntl*spn*

Dean looked at Masaharu Inoue, the visibly worried father of the missing boy, and asked Jody. "Where's the mom?"

"Bitter divorce," Jody explained. "Norio left town months ago."

"Find her," Dean growled.

"We're looking." Jody knew how to do her job.

"Look harder," Sam said compassionately. "We both know that in the real world as opposed to TV crime dramas, the vast majority of child abductions are carried out by the non-custodial parent."

Yes, Jody knew that. She hurried over to her squad car and demanded and update on the last known location of Norio Inoue immediately, purportedly as the parent of an abducted child. Yes, until they confirmed otherwise, it was to inform her of the kidnapping but everyone in the office knew as Sam and Jody: odds were good that Norio was the kidnapper.

Dean and Sam appeared beside her. "Can we see the kid's lunchbox," Dean pointed to the Ninja Turtles box in Mr. Inaue's hands. "See if he ate anything."

It was a good idea, knowing how soon Norio would have to stop to feed him. She hadn't been one for planning ahead, as Jody remembered. Very impulsive, and an irresponsible shopaholic. She had a temper and would hit when she didn't get her way. The Inaue household had been frequently visited by the police for domestic violence before the divorce.

Mr. Inaue handed over lunchbox without protest. Jody searched it and found the sandwich gone and most of the carrot sticks still there. No surprise, nothing to indicate that Toby knew she was coming. She handed it over to Dean and he looked it over and was disappointed.

"Check the thermos," Sam suggested.

Dean did, stuck his nose it and seemed satisfied.

"Empty or full?" Jody asked.

"Empty. It was lemonade, real and not a lot of sugar," Dean announced.

"So he likes things tart," Sam murmured.

Dean put the lunch box back together and handed it to Jody. Jody returned it to Mr. Inaue. When she returned to the Singer boys, Dean was saying, "The mom was definitely here." He took a deep breath and gagged a little.

Sam braced him. "You're doing fine," he murmured.

"She tempted him with sour Skittles. It's his favorite, I think, and she knew that. That's how she got him in the car." Dean made face; a little bit sick and a little bit wistful.

"Which way did she go?"

Dean pointed down the side street; the opposite direction from the freeway. Not the direction that Jody would have guessed.

"Let's go that way."

"They're in a car," Dean protested. "Moving too fast."

"You're doing fine," Sam encouraged. "We'll keep on going until you can't sense them anymore and then we'll do old-fashioned grunt work."

Sam didn't act surprised at Dean's pronouncements, simply accepted them as fact.

Jody had never seen Dean work, but if this was how he got his results… (and she had to face the fact that somehow Dean had found stolen jewelry in a bird's nest).

If Dean just knew the answers…

If Dean knew…

Dean was a psychic. That was the only logical explanation. He was definitely a tracker in the physical realm as well as the… psychic, but Dean Smith was a psychic (those apparently existed outside of sci-fi novels). That was how he had managed such smooth matchmaking. Jody knew a moment of pure fury when she put it together with Dean's complete lack of military background. Dean had used his talents for the military, some part that didn't exist on paper and when he burnt out, they mercilessly kicked him out. They didn't make up some benign lie just in case Dean claimed to be a psychic later on, they didn't want anyone getting a hint of the government's psychic unit. They had thrown Dean out into the cold without even VA benefits, probably because they didn't want him to be honest with a shrink. That was why Jody couldn't find any military in Dean's background; someone had made sure to wipe it clean. Jody decided that she wouldn't let it continue to be a stumbling block in getting Dean's PI license. Jody was going to make that happen… as soon as Dean found Toby.

Dean would find Toby, though Jody acknowledged that there had to be limitations to Dean's talent. Dean was so fragile when he thought no one was looking. He hadn't been running every day, all day for his health or because he was training for a marathon, but because he couldn't sit still with his own thoughts… or whatever he was picking up from the world around him.

"Go," Jody ordered.

Both the Singer boys jumped and looked _frightened_. They thought that she had heard too much and…

"Go," Jody ordered, again. "Find Toby. Call or text me when you get close and I'll come and take care of Norio. You don't want in the police reports."

Sam understood first and the smile he blessed her with was brilliant. "We'll be in contact soon."

Dean smiled, but his was hesitant, painful. Jody didn't know what to say so that he would trust her. She already knew too many of his secrets. "Go," she ordered. "Get Toby before Norio gets him out of town."

Dean nodded once and then took off like a shot down the residential street.

Jody went back to Masaharu Inaue (he was insisting that everyone call him Masa to prevent mangling his name) and asked for a list of Toby's favorite places. She was relieved that by the time all of the searchers had convened and received their search grid, Dean was calling and telling her to come to the ice cream/custard shop on the edge of town.

She went by herself; no one else needed to know Dean's secret. She used her sirens to get near, but turned them off two streets early as Dean as suggested.

Toby and Norio were sitting at a picnic table outside of the ice cream place. Sam was standing behind Norio, his hands firmly on her shoulders. He was not letting her move and she looked furious. Sam wasn't letting twist enough to hit him. Dean was next to Toby and the two were cheerfully debating the merits of various custard flavors. Toby had no idea how close he had been from cutting off ties with all he knew.

Jody called for back-up and sat on the other side of Toby, to shelter the kid. When the other sheriffs arrived, along with Masa, Toby was thrilled to see his father and to share his lime custard. They arrested Norio out of sight of her son.

This time, Jody wasn't surprised that the Singer boys had vanished. She would catch up with them later.

*sntl*spn*

The Sioux Falls Sentinel reported that Toby had been found because of an anonymous tip in response to the Amber Alert. Jody expected that now.

*sntl*spn*

Jody visited Bobby Singer's scrapyard to get her story straight with the Singer boys. According to the paperwork, Dean and Sam had never been at the school. They had heard the Amber Alert on the radio and had happened to see Toby at the ice cream parlor. The parlor was on the road from the Sentinel newspaper office to the elementary school so it wasn't that much of a reach. From there, the story was the absolute truth.

"This is two for two on you finding missing kids." Jody handed Dean and Sam paperwork for being police consultants. Somewhere she had figured out that Dean needed Sam to work. "We want to put you on the payroll."

Dean was the most surprised, Sam not far behind. Bobby looked downright smug.

"You need to fill these out."

Sam immediately started, but Dean handed over his paperwork to his brother. Sam accepted it with an eye roll and seemed to expect it.

Jody handed another folder of paperwork to Dean.

"What's this?" he asked suspiciously.

"For your Private Detective license."

"You want me to be a private dick," Dean said gleefully.

"I'd rather you join the department, but you're not ready for that. This way you can set your hours according to your needs and you have a title that people expect when I send them your way because the police can't help them. I already in the background check for you."

Dean and Sam froze, knowing that it wouldn't match up.

"Everything was fine," she reassured them. "Nothing out of the ordinary." Nothing that would raise flags, at least.

Dean found that amusing.

"So you have talents, Dean," Jody said. All the men around her had 'Oh, Shit!' expressions on their faces. Sam stopped writing and shifted his hold on the pen to something defensive. "You're a psychic and I understand that it's a big secret. It's safe with me."

Jody apparently was better at appearing trustworthy than she thought because all of the men relaxed in increments. Dean first (did he I_know_/I that she was being honest?), then Sam and Bobby last.

"What do you need to work best?" she asked.

"Unfettered access to the scene before anyone else," Sam immediately told her. "If other people are there, they… layer on top and it's hard for Dean to… know."

Jody thought about it. "That's why you needed the lunchbox, but everyone else had touched it, but no one had opened the thermos."

Dean nodded. "That was pure Toby. I needed that to… focus to start." They had completely lucked out that Toby had forgotten his lunchbox on that day.

"What did you use for Zina and Machala?" Dean hadn't gone anywhere near the house as far she knew, not until after he had found the girls.

Dean shrugged. "I remembered Zina from the bracelet in the bird's nest. The bird was easier than another human to… filter out."

Jody had no idea how the psychic thing worked but that had to be impressive. She also figured that it must be very hard to explain such talents with words that didn't account for such a reality. "That was weeks earlier."

Dean shrugged again.

"In the future, can you use the dirty clothes we collect for the sniffer dogs? I could probably get that to you for a minute, or would the collection of the clothes make them unusable?"

"That would work."

"Do you need Sam there?"

"Yes," Sam answered.

Dean shrugged yet again. "Sam works best by far, but I do need someone so that I don't get lost in the input."

"Do they have to know what they're doing?"

"No, not unless it's a really complicated trail. The more complicated it is, the more I need Sam over everyone else."

"Okay," Jody decided. "We'll figure something out." Jody also had to figure out how not to tell Lauren. She had promised to keep the secret and she would 'till her dying breath.

*sntl*spn*


	16. Chapter 16

*sntl*spn*

Despite all the speeding –and Dean somehow identifying cops in the distance to prevent being pulled over, the Winchesters didn't arrive at Lisa's house until three in the afternoon. Lisa was wound tight and standing in the entrance. Sam didn't need to be a Sentinel to know she was furious. She didn't want them in the house. She didn't like anything that would put distance between her and her son. Ben already idolized Dean and that was before he knew that there was a biological relationship.

"One condition," she demanded.

"What?" Dean was vibrating with worry. He would have agreed to just about anything, including his soul to protect Ben.

"He never finds out that you're his father."

Dean tilted his head in the classic listening pose. "Too late, Lisa," he said as he shouldered past her. He was carrying what he had deemed were Sentinel-first-aid supplies. "You just told him."

Lisa gaped and Sam offered her an apologetic smile. "You'll get used to it. If you point me at your bathroom, I'll clean it."

Lisa bristled at the implied insult. "I cleaned my bathroom two days ago."

"Ben's extremely sensitive to chemicals now. Chances are that whatever you used to clean it are more irritating than the dirt they cleaned." Sam showed her the box Dean had packed. "Just, let me do this for you."

Lisa shrugged in helplessness.

"It is why we drove all the way here."

"To clean my bathroom?" a tiny bit of humor seeped through.

"And anything else that might set off Ben's senses. It's a long list, but if we follow it, he'll live a pretty good life."

Lisa straightened, determined to help her son. "Let's start and you can explain everything." She allowed Sam into the house and led the way to the bathroom. She paused outside of Ben's room and could see her son wrapped in Dean's leather jacket, wearing his wraparound sunglasses and noise cancelling earmuffs. Ben had his hands on Dean's carotid pulse and his mouth was moving slightly. Sam guessed that he was talking, but so softly that only another Sentinel could hear. Dean was holding him and sometimes nodding or shaking his head. Sam memorized the scene and not only because Sandburg was going to demand a full report.

Sam bumped into Lisa and she stopped staring at the odd scene. Lisa's bathroom was sparkling clean but Sam could still smell the chemical odors. He dumped his cleaning supplies in the tub and started packing everything that could cause a sense to spike or zone. All soaps and shampoos, and Lisa's candles went into the box with the cleaning supplies from under the sink. Once that box was full, Lisa appeared with a second box. Sam cleaned out her linen closet.

Lisa opened her mouth to protest Sam's treatment of the clean closet. "We brought detergent and fabric softener. Everything in the house will need washed. Pick out what you want to wear for the next couple days. Cotton, nothing rough and put it on top of the washer. When Ben and Dean are done with the bathroom, Dean'll throw in a load with some of Ben's clothes."

Lisa nodded and vanished. Sam mixed up some baking soda with water. Dean hated the gritty texture of the combination but when one needed chemicals and odors absorbed, there was nothing better. Sam layered the paste on the tub and shower stall, the sink, toilet and the floor. He filled a bucket with some mild, unscented dish soap and water.

"What do I need to do?" Lisa asked from the doorway.

"Where's your cleaning bucket?"

She disappeared and reappeared shortly with a vibrant purple bucket. "I want to look at something pretty while I'm cleaning," she explained.

Sam understood. He turned the bucket in his hand around so that she could see the Batman symbol etched in the black.

"That's Dean's work," she knew.

Sam grinned. "Yep." He poured half of his soap and warm water mix into Lisa's bucket. "Everything from the ceiling down needs washed.

Lisa blinked and looked up. "I'll get the ceiling," he promised.

"Are you going to start talking now?"

"Oh," Sam blushed. He was too used to Dean knowing what he was thinking and everyone either already knowing or in the you-don't-need-to-know category. "All five," he shook his head and corrected himself, "six of Ben's senses are augmented beyond normal capabilities. He can see further, hear more, smell more and taste more than you can imagine. People like him in the supernatural world are called Hawks. People like him who eschew the supernatural world are called Sentinels."

"So Ben is a Sentinel," Lisa decided.

Sam stopped and stared at her.

She twitched a couple of times before relenting. "It's not my choice, is it?"

"It's not even Dean's choice. Ben is a Hawk. He has the same spirit animal as Dean."

"A hawk?" Lisa guessed.

"A griffin," Sam corrected. At Lisa's confused expression, Sam back tracked. "I should start with Sir Richard Burton, explorer, not actor and Blair Sandburg, a young man working on his PhD." Sam talked and explained everything he knew and didn't know about Sentinels, Guides, Hawks and Hawkers as he and Lisa scrubbed down the bathroom. Finally they were finished with cleaning.

Sam knocked on Ben's door. Dean would know that the bathroom was available and ushered Lisa out the door so that they could buy food. It was as much to get staples in the house as it was to show her what was safe and not. Dean had smelled a farmers' market on the way in to town and so he suggested that Lisa drive them there.

Sam was pleased with the numerous canopies indicating food for sale. He grilled every one of the stall owners about chemicals that might have been used to fertilize or remove pests from the garden and the types of ingredients used in the baking. He was in a hurry and might have been a little more curt than normal.

Lisa watched, somewhere between amusement and horror at his behavior. "And people think you're the nice brother," she remarked after he called one woman's lie so harshly that she burst into tears.

Sam still winced at the tears. "I am the nice brother. She should have just told me the truth. Ben and Dean are not the only people horribly allergic to such things. She's inviting a law suit with her false advertising."

At the farmers' market in Lisa's town, Sam picked up a watermelon, cinnamon raisin bread and fresh wheat bread for sandwiches. He bought eggs and a butchered chicken. He also gathered the business cards of two soap manufacturers that truly used all natural ingredients. He bought maple syrup in a glass jar. Lisa loved real maple syrup but Ben wouldn't touch it and it would go bad in the fridge before she could eat it all. Sam let her carry the bread so it wouldn't get smashed but insisted on carrying all the other produce to the car.

Lisa worried about putting down money on the maple syrup as she started the drive home.

"Ben will eat it now," Sam reassured her. "And with us here, I doubt if it'll last the whole week."

"You'll be here a week?"

"I have to leave in four days, but Dean will be stay if he's needed."

"Do you think he will?"

"I don't know. Most of the day to day stuff you will have to figure out on your own. We can only give you hints and not all of them will be helpful. We know what worked –what does work- with Dean but that might not be the same with Ben."

Lisa took a deep breath. "There's no going back."

"Not without it kicking him in the ass later." Sam smiled. "If it ever gets to be too much, put him in the car and come out to South Dakota. We have a spare room for you two at Bobby's that is Sentinel safe and tons of food that won't set him off."

"That's a long drive."

Sam knew, he had just traveled it. "Yes."

"Why not a plane?"

Sam winced. "Dean wouldn't get on a plane before his senses were completely on –now I know that it was more than irrational fear of flying- and Jim, the Sentinel with the most experience, can barely suffer through and only with his Guide. Ben doesn't have a Guide. You'll do the bulk of the work and Blair and I can step in, but he'll need his own someday."

"You explained about spikes and zones but what will I have to do?"

"Run him through exercises, daily to increase his control."

"He's not going to like that."

"Not at all. Hopefully he'll complain less than the adults."

"Dean whines?" Lisa guessed.

"Dean whines." Sam shrugged. "The whining went away for a while when he really needed it, but now that he mostly has the senses under control, the whining is incessant."

"You would worry if he didn't."

"Immediately," Sam confirmed.

Lisa understood that. She sighed as she realized that that was her future as well. She pulled into her driveway, anticipating a change, but wasn't sure exactly what. The washer and the dryer were running when they returned.

And Ben…

Ben was sitting at the table when they returned, devouring a mug of chicken-vegetable soup. Both he and Dean had wet hair and her son was swimming in a set of Dean's clothes. Dean was working on his own mug and between the two, they had finished off a quart of it. Ben slurped up the last dregs, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of Dean's shirt that he was wearing and grinned at his mom.

"What's for dinner?" he asked. This was the same kid they had left huddle under a sheet, in too much pain to move or speak.

Even Sam blinked at the enthusiasm. "That was fast," he said to Dean.

Dean was bemused. "Yeah, I think he'll have it easier than both Jim and me."

Lisa went to give Ben a joyful hug but both brothers stood in her way. Her temper snapped.

"You have to take a shower and get your perfume off you," Sam told her quickly. He figured that anything a normal person could smell was bad for a Sentinel.

Dean added, "There'll be some of your clothes coming out of the dryer by the time you're done."

Lisa still looked like she would wallop the both of them so Sam pulled out the big guns, "Or you could touch him and send him back into a relapse."

Lisa froze at that. Dean was glaring at Sam for putting it so bluntly.

"Come on, Mom," Ben cajoled. "You know you want a shower. Wash the worry off of you."

"Worry?" Lisa asked.

"They can smell it," Sam murmured.

Dean ruffled Ben's hair. "Get used to the smell, kid. I'm sure it's not going anywhere."

"But I'm fine now."

"No," Dean argued. "Now, you're stable. You have to do a hell of a lot of work to stay that way."

"Awww," Ben complained, as Lisa snapped, "Language."

Sam shifted his body and Lisa moved back out of reflex. Another shift and Lisa was heading toward the stairs and the newly cleaned bathroom. "I don't need handled, Sam." Lisa was still pissed, but she wouldn't argue in front of her son. "I won't forget that you're the mean brother."

"Ha!" Dean crowed. "It's about time other people noticed!"

Lisa let a smile slip through. She was certainly fond of Sam's older brother. "Okay, Okay. I'm going."

"How about cinnamon French toast for dinner?" Sam offered.

Lisa's acceptance was drowned out by Ben's cheer.

*sntl*spn*


	17. Chapter 17

Conversations as Lisa Learns the Full Truth

*sntl*spn*

Dean had listened to Lisa try to explain to her current boyfriend the two strange men in her house. Luckily she understood that Ben's new condition, or rather new diagnosis of the building condition, needed to be kept a secret.

Once he had checked that Ben was truly asleep, Dean cornered Lisa where Sam couldn't snoop.

"Sooo," Dean really, really didn't want to have this conversation but he couldn't pawn it off on Sam.

Lisa stood, turned and looked at Dean. "You cannot have an issue with Cameron. You and I are long over."

Dean raised his hands in surrender. "I know that, quite well. It's more…" Dean grimaced, he couldn't think of a polite way to say… "You can't have sex in the house."

"Excuse me? It's my house."

"And Ben can smell, can hear I_everything_/I that happens in this house. He's keeping track of your heartbeat at all times. He listens for it constantly when you are in the house. If he can hear that, what else would he be able to hear during your fun? Do you want him to hear you having sex?"

Lisa blanched.

"So have sex elsewhere," Dean summarized…. "And take a shower there after. Or at your yoga studio on your way home. Sex is… pretty… potent."

Lisa tilted her head curiously. "When was the last time you had sex?"

Dean turned his face. He didn't want ex-girlfriend to read him. "Lis, I'm in such a bad place that I can't even hide it long enough to enjoy a romp." He thought of something with a grin. "You offering? I know, I know, Cameron. N'vrmind that. Anyway, we think Jim should have to give the sex and Sentinels talk. It's hysterical. But he is the only one with the experience, right now."

"I think I'd rather you give the talk," Lisa decided slowly. "I know how you were and you never got yourself into trouble or an STD and I'm pretty sure that Ben is your only kid you've got out there and that's half on me."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll do it. If you take care of the menstruation talk."

"I'm sure he had that in health class."

"Taking a test on it is completely different than waking up one morning and I_knowing_/I that your mom is bleeding. I don't want that conversation."

Lisa's mouth dropped and she snapped it closed. How could she argue with that? "Deal. I'll take care of it."

Dean smirked a bit. "If you work it right, you might get a little coddling on those days."

"I'd be happy if he handed me pain pills, a heating pad and took care of his own dinner."

"A distinct possibility. He'll be able to smell your pain."

*sntl*spn*

Dean and Lisa watched from the high school football bleachers as Sam and Ben stood in the end zone. Sam was running an enthusiastic Ben through sense exercise after exercise. Ben was doing an excellent job and with every compliment from his father and uncle, tried all the harder the next time.

"What do you want outta… all this," Dean asked bluntly.

Lisa jerked, her focus on her son, "but can't he…"

"Sam's working on smell right now. Ben had no idea how to use two senses at the same time. We probably could have this conversation close enough for Sam to hear us and still, Ben wouldn't."

Lisa bit her lip. "What I want is inconsequential. What I need is a week with him out of the house so that I can do all the laundry and scrub the house, ceiling to floor."

"We're here to do that. That's why I brought Stretch, for the ceilings," Dean said light-heartedly.

"No," Lisa shook her head. "After Ben had the spikes while we were cleaning his room, I want him out of the house." She smirked a tiny bit. "I'll have myself a part and light all of my 'smelly' candles that you and he turn your nose up at."

"They don't smell anything like what you say they do," Dean complained. "Apple pie smell should make my stomach rumble not lurch."

Lisa ignored his comment. "Maybe have sex in my own bed and… mourn the normal childhood he should have had."

"Normal is boring," Dean scoffed. "Yes, the Sentinel thing is a lot to handle."

"But normal is safe," Lisa argued.

Dean bit his tongue and Lisa smiled at the restraint. "Yes, the changlings could have been more deadly if not for your non-normal training but how often does that happen to regular people?" Lisa sighed. "Ben is going to go looking for the supernatural now."

"He's not going to have to look hard," Dean muttered. He saw a figure across the field, its facial feature's obscured by a bright inner light. "Stay here," he ordered Lisa.

He charged across the field toward the strange being, Dean had never seen its like, not before hell and certainly not after becoming a Sentinel. "What are you?" he demanded of it.

"I am an angel of the Lord."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, right."

The creature spread his wings, that were well outside of the normal human's visible range. Might be an angel after all.

"Cool!" he heard Ben declare. Dean also heard Sam send the pre-teen (with no self-preservation instincts) to his mother and felt Sam hurry to step behind his left shoulder.

"No, really," Dean asked. The thing (angel?) wasn't trying to kill him yet and that might have been the best evidence to its species. "What are you?"

"I am Castiel. An angel of the Lord. I am he who raised you from Perdition."

Dean took a step back and grounded himself in his brother's presence, overcome by the memory of smell. Burning feathers. He remembered that now. Yes. This creature, as he now presented himself, have been there at the very end of Dean's… tenure in Hell. "Why are you here now?"

"I've been waiting for you to gain control, Hawk. With such, you can see my true visage and hear my true voice."

Dean glanced at Sam and realized that he had his eyes closed and his hands pressed against his ears. Whatever Dean was hearing, Sam was not. "Why are you here, now, near Ben?"

"Because the truest measure of one's understanding is how well one teaches."

"Did he activate because of you?" Dean knew it had to be a supernatural beginning.

"No." Castiel looked aghast at Dean's ignorance.

"A young Hawk will activate in stages. It may take years, but the first sense happens when it is needed. Benjamin needed to hear you during the interaction with the… you call them changlings… and so he did. The other senses have been increasing since then."

Dean floundered. He could have been left in Hell and then what would have happened to Ben? No one else, none of the parade of specialists Lisa had taken the boy to had been able to improve the situation. How long would have Ben lasted before going crazy?

"Why did you rescue me?" Dean asked. "For Ben?"

"The whole Winchester Line had much to do. I will communicate more." I_And then it disappeared!/I_ Completely off the senses, gone.

Dean expressed his displeasure with a string of swears that delighted Ben.

*sntl*spn*


End file.
